MACHINE DIVAS / ARTIST ENGINEERS
Kunstraum Niederösterreich | Wien

Documentation

Opening THU 16 07 09 19:00
Performance by Andrea Sodomka (A): “Two Passersby Meeting In The Crowd” – an alien production, Avatar | Coral – X, live voice | Lisa-Maria Brandstötter, Theory: Introduction by Eva Ursprung (A)Kathy Rae Huffman (USA) – Electric BridesMonika Fleischmann (D) – Touch. The construction of reality in interactive media art, Sabine Perthold (A) – Fan-, fan-, fanatisch, wir tanzen automatisch! Helen Varley Jamieson (NZ/AUT) – Cyberformance

Worklab “Desktop Theater”: 17 07 – 22 07 09 | 11:00 – 17:00 (except Sunday SUN 19 07)
Helen Varley Jamieson: Cyberformance and the creation of live online performances using UpStage [more]

Applications until 14 07 09 at anmeldung[at]kunstraum[dot]net
Workshop fee: Eur 30,-

Finnisage DO 23 07 09 19:00:
Cyberformance “Machine Divas”:
Real time online performance with Helen Varley Jamieson, Suzon Fuks (remote) and workshop participants

Mit Interviews bzw. Beiträgen von:
Nina Sobell (Video: Evelin Stermitz), Helen Varley Jamieson / Avatar Body Collision, Boryana Dragoeva Rossa, Diana Burgoyne, Janneke Schönenbach (bbm), cym, Tina Auer, Nicole Pruckermayr, Eva Wohlgemuth

Der Salon auf der diesjährigen ars electronica ist Zwischenbericht und Startschuss für ein weiterführendes Projekt mit der Intention, einen ständig wachsenden pool von Informationen über Künstlerinnen, die sich in weitestem Sinn mit „Maschinentheater“ beschäftigen, zu kreieren.
Der Begriff „Maschinendiva“ wird auf seine Tauglichkeit zur Selbstdefinition und in der Folge zur Schaffung einer etwaigen gemeinsamen Identität untersucht. Auf dieser Basis wird die Gründung eines Netzwerks angedacht.

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]