Cyberfeminism is the synergistic creation of multiple artists and feminists in the mid 90s
although its title is largely attributed to the feminist art collective VNS Matrix and the cultural theorist Sadie Plant.
In 1991 VNS Matrix released their Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century; at the same time, Sadie Plant
was reclaiming technology as feminine, citing Ada Lovelace, early telephone operators, and the parallels between power-loom weaving and the Web. Within this space feminists
passionate about technology and the revolutionary space being created made works of art, newsletters, zines, and webpages encouraging women to embrace technology as their right, as a tool to resist the patriarchy,
as a shedding of physical form, and as an innately feminine concept.
Net.art in the 90s
Around the time cyberfeminism was kicking off the net.art movement was blossoming as well, seeing artists create avant garde works of art using code. Net.art is a loose definition: it broadly refers to anything created using the internet as its medium and sole place of interaction. One notable work that impacted the selective process of my curation was Olia Lialinas "My Boyfriend Came Back from the War", a 1996 hypertext narrative that explored a story of infidelity using multiple logic pathways. I chose to curate works similar in form to this one, both because it is a prevalant art form among cyberfeminists and because its narrative potential combined with digital processes makes a compelling case for storytelling on the internet.
Net.art the movement, net art the genre, and cyberfeminism converged in the 90s and 2000s to create a rich body of work that deserves attention as a niche but impactful ideological and artistic movement.
Cyberfeminist Digital Art
Many cyberfeminists artworks did not classify as net art, choosing instead to use video, audio, performance and writing to spread their ideas. Those that did, however, are scattered throughout the internet, unavailable unless they are dug for. An even larger percentage has been lost to time via outdated languages, unmaintained domains, and a lack of archiving. On this website you will find examples of cyberfeminist art, links to interact with the works in their original forms, and a brief interactive text-based game exploring cyberfeminist rhetoric.
Welcome to the matrix :-)
