Artist Adrianne Wortzel, is online with her new narrative 'The Electronic Chronicles.'
The Extensions of Ourselves: WE ARE CYBORG;
Embracing Our Past, Celebrating Our Future
THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF WOMEN (WWW!) ONLINE
From the grand and the divine, to the petulant and even petty, there is a wondrous wealth of "sisterhood" to be found on the Internet. In this section of this paper, I will introduce the reader to some current magical and/or informative women-based websites.
Hotwired e-zine (electronic magazine) never misses a beat when it comes to the offbeat in electronic happenings. The GeekGrrrls were reviewed by Hotwired in highly amusing terms. "Deflating the preconceptions of the Net as a Poobah boys' club, Net Chick invites the Betties and Wilmas of the world to join the glorious info explosion now taking place on a nearby monitor . . ." Author Sinclair covers a wide scope of 'chicks' who have found their place in the electronic ether. The lineup includes: Rene Cigler, Tank Girl's jewelry designer, whose vegetable strainer bikini is pictured; Stacy Horn, founder of the East Coast online service ECHO; Reeva Basch, cybrarian extraordinaire; and even HotWired's own Jill Atkinson (Borruso 1996, http://wwww.hotwired.com/books/96/02/index4a.html)." Checking out the GeekGrrrls site was somewhat akin to bobbing for French Fries (thank you, Addams Family II) -- but well worth the visit if you want to keep up with the latest in technology as it pertains to your Generation X daughter. Having refreshed myself in a quick "slam-dunk" I returned to saner waters.
The Gender-Related Electronic Forums website is an annotated, frequently-updated, alphabetical listing of publicly-accessible electronic forums related to women or to gender issues. For quick searches in general topics on women-focused topics, they also have the following topical listings: Activist, Arts and Humanities, Education, Health, International, Internet Information, Religion/Spirituality, Science/Technology, Sexuality/Sexual Orientation, Social Science, and Women of Color, Women's Studies Lists (Korenman 1994-97, http://www-unix.umbc.edu/~korenman/wmst/forums.html). This particular website was filled with usable information. A similar website, "Women's Web Links: Computers and the Internet for Women includes links such as these:
ATAC...Corporation -- Internet Image Technologies world class, award winning web site development by a women-owned company;
Advancing Women -- one of the most popular and fastest growing sites on the Internet, is an international networking site for women in the workplace, providing fast breaking global, business and web news, women's and Latina issues, communication tools such as real time, chat enabled web pages to meet and network;
Feminist.com -- A site aimed at helping women network on the Internet;
The WITI Campus -- The mission of the International Network of Women in Technology (WITI) is to increase the number of women hired and promoted to management and executive level positions, help women become more technology literate and financially independent, and to encourage young women to choose careers in technology and science;
Yvonatron, Web Mistress of the Dark -- Yvonne is a Multimedia Madwoman. Don't be afraid to visit.
(Osted 1997, http://www.cyberspc.mb.ca/~fullmoon/w-thenet.html)."
Search engines revealed that many, many artists and designers are now operating online. I am listing several of these individual websites to demonstrate how the use of this technology neatly fits within the parameters of the cyborg theory, as it has developed since Donna Haraway's initial interpretation. These artists are very involved in the use of technology as an extension of themselves:
"Traci Stevens, Digital Artist & Designer --
Created original digital images for FCIT and The Instructional Technology Program.
Maintained and updated the Center's WWW sites and other related web pages.
Used flatbed scanners, video editing software, digital cameras, graphic digitizing tablets, external storage media, and networks daily.
Worked in cooperation with the DOE and FIRN to develop booklets, brochures and simulations for educators around the world.
Extensive knowledge of Photoshop 3.0., in conjunction with the applications listed.
Proficient in both Macintosh and Windows systems.
Her web sites include: A Teachers Guide to The Holocaust; Instructional Technology Program Home Page; The Florida Center for Instructional Technology Home Page; College of Education Home Page; Principles of Learning Course, College of Education; Interactive Technologies; Videodiscs in Education; FIRNMAIL/Internet Simulations; Getting Started With Telecommunications; Solving the Networking Puzzle (Stevens 1996, http://www.coedu.usf.edu/~stevens)."
"Jane Veeder presents TECHNOLOGY IN THE 1990s:
The Digital Artist and Tool Development Trends -- Digital artists are developing new art forms within a rapidly evolving electronic tool environment. Jane Veeder will examine this environment and its underlying models of creative process as impacted by the entertainment economy and the information culture. She will trace the history of and recent democratization of 3D, outline the development and background of multimedia tools, and elucidate new trends, such as object oriented scripting environments for interactive media -- and will project how all of this bears upon individual artists. Veeder will also present her work-in-progress, 'JG3D' (Jane Goes 3-D), a computer animation that weaves personal creative history into a formal investigation of three dimensional space and motion (Veeder 1997, http://www.adaweb.com/context/events/moma/bbs2/index.html)."
"Women Artists Archive; Special collection/archives; Salazar Library, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA. The Women Artists Archive is a special collection in the Ruben Salazar Library at Sonoma State University and is open for public use. It contains information on over 1,000 women artists from the Middle Ages through the present day. Resources include:
approximately 7,500 color and black-and-white slides
books on women's art history and individual artists
periodicals, focused on both women in art and contemporary art in general
standing files containing printed material
The printed material ranges from published articles, personal correspondence, museum photographs of artwork, exhibition notices, brochures, and unpublished student papers. In addition, the Archive has historical information on feminist art organizations, periodicals, exhibition announcements, articles, and criticism chronicling women's art movements in the 1970s. (Women Artists Archive 1997, http://libweb.sonoma.edu/special/waa/)."
Artist Adrianne Wortzel, is online with her new narrative 'The Electronic Chronicles.'
"The piece brilliantly presents a new concept of literature made possible by the World Wide Web, an electronic medium which offers a non-hierarchical, non-linear, non-possessive and pluralistic environment in which to develop narrative. Electronic media is changing accepted definitions of reading, writing and communications in a way not paralleled since the invention of the printing press. Her online work was exhibited in The Digital Salon Exhibition 1995 and featured at the 1995 Berlin VideoFest, the Chimera Festival at the University of South Wales and published by ArtNetWeb in New York.
"Wortzel is the designer of the Museum of Modern Art's first World Wide Web site, 'Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design' (http://www.sva.edu/moma/mutantmaterials/) and the Claes Oldenburg site for the Guggenheim Museum, soon to be announced. The Chronicles consist of clusters of stories continually constructed and connected internally as well as externally to other sites on the Internet. It currently consists of 45 web 'pages' and is continually in construction. The Electronic Chronicles can be accessed on the World Wide Web through the ArtNetWeb site at: http://artnetweb.com/artnetweb/projects/ahneed/first.html. [The site] has been rated among the top 5% of all sites on the Internet by Point Survey, http://www.pointcom.com/ (Wortzel 1995, http://www.interactive.yorku.ca/bios/wortzel.html)."
For these artists, and for countless others, the true meaning of cyborg politics is alive and well within the "walls" of their website. Some of them, in a search for self that totally escapes the boundaries of patriarchal oppression, have done what female artists have done for centuries -- they have adopted a "non-gendered" alias. Understanding their philosophy, and having undergone that process in earlier years with my art, it is my feeling that, although somewhat effective, a change in name does NOT affect the change we seek. It is in the nature of the true change in identity, in SELF, that we can begin to adopt the changes we really seek. These potent technologies, in my estimation, afford us the ONLY avenue toward a rightful place -- in the art world, or anywhere on this planet.