A Retro-Utopian Investigation of Machine Theater
by Andrea Sodomka and Eva Ursprung

“Machine Divas” is what Virginia Eubanks – in an interview about the Survival Research Laboratories – calls the women working in this group. [more]

In May 2007, Andrea Sodomka and Eva Ursprung started their investigation on „Machine Divas“ – woman artists using technology for their work in nowadays expanded „theater space“. The first results were presented at the IMA Salon #7 07 at ars electronica and put forward for discussion on a panel with Inke Arns, Kathy Rae Huffman and Eva Wohlgemuth.

This panel has been starting point and inspiration for further lines of ideas and activities. Ideas and intentions include the creation of a pool of information on woman artists using technology for their work in an expanded concept of „theater“, as well as a prospective exhibition.
A reflection on the term „Machine Diva“ draws questions on self-definition and the possibility of something like a shared identity.

In July 2009 the second Salon, which is dedicated to the research and investigation by artists who, in the broadest sense, concern themselves with ideas of the “machine theater” took place at the Kunstraum Niederösterreich in Vienna. Cyberspace therefore becomes an extension of the classical theater, acting as a stage where women increasingly stage themselves, instead of being staged by others.

The theater space that is created using contemporary technologies enables the fusion of various playing levels and establishes new networking options for players by means of the Web. The media artist, New Zealander Helen Varley Jamieson, uses synergies that develop fromt this dynamic networking by using the Internet as playable space, which she uses as a stage for her “Cyberperfomances”. In her Desktop Theater Worklab, the participants program their own performance using simple tools, a performance thtat allows players to participate even from a distance. Ironically, imaginatively and subversively, the real-time performances welcome the configuration and shaping of medial space.

The research:

An important part of the project “Art Engineers vs. Machine Divas“ consists of interviews with women artists using technology for their work in nowadays expanded „theater space“. Artists, whose work is somehow related to the idea of the “Machine Theater”. Artists moving between Internet stages, space art projects and robot actors, who have transformed the figure of the “artist engineer” from the early 20th century and augmented it with many new forms.
The description of positions and approaches of these women artists, especially of their roots and their preoccupation with “machines” in all their various forms, is the aim and the theme of this investigation.
We are asking for their first experiences with technology, their technological utopias, their experiences on exchanging know-how with other artists or technicians.
Including questions like:
What are your stages?
Who are your actors?
What are your “machines”?
Furthermore we are asking for verbal statements about the part machines play in the artist’s work, and what they mean to them.
On the one hand the intention of this research is the creation of a pool of information on woman artists using technology for their work in an expanded concept of „machine theater“.
On the other hand we are searching for new questions to be asked, in order to specify and define the role of contemporary women artists working in this special field.

Eva Ursprung zur Suche nach “Maschinendivas”

Die Konstruktion von Frauen und Technik als Antagonismus sitzt tief, doch in einer zunehmend von Technik bestimmten Umgebung wird vor allem für Künstlerinnen der jüngeren Generation der Umgang damit immer selbstverständlicher. [more]

(media-)installation, video and music sometimes alone sometimes with other people. [more]

Nina Sobell pioneered the use of video, computers, and interactivity in art [more]

makes photographs, movies, artistic actions and combinations of all these. [more]

free-lancer, artist, time’s up… [more]

Avatar Body Collision

is Vicki Smith (new zealand), Helen Varley Jamieson (currently Australia), Leena Saarinen (Finland) and Karla Ptacek (England). [more]

Diana Burgoyne

performer and electronic folk artist … [more]

cym

netartist, researching the relation between virtual reality and real life [more]

Monika Fleischmann

german research artist, fashion design, computer graphics … [more]

Christina Goestl

electronical media artist, creates interactive applications and open systems …
[more]

Kathy Rae Huffman

writer, curator and lecturer…[more]

Helen Varley Jamieson

writer, theatre practitioner and digital artist. [more]

Nicole Pruckermayr

(media-)installation, video and music sometimes alone sometimes with other people. [more]

Boryana Rossa

makes photographs, movies, artistic actions and combinations of all these. [more]

Janneke Schönenbach

free artist, illustrator, graphics-designer. [more]

Andrea Sodomka

member of alien productions as an artist’s network for theory and aesthetics of new technology and media. [more]

Nina Sobell

Nina Sobell pioneered the use of video, computers, and interactivity in art [more]

Eva Ursprung

free lancing artist, working with sound, video and conceptional photography [more]

Faith Wilding

subRosa, reproducible cyberfeminis and researcher [more]

Eva Wohlgemuth

concept- mediaartist [more]

by Kathy Rae Huffman

Electronic Brides,Machine Divas and Robotic Visionistas is a research into the artworks by women who have made significant contributions to the fields of Cybernetics, Robotics, and Kinetics. [more]