Leonardo

Women, Art and Technology by Judy MalloyReview by: Stefaan Van RyssenLeonardo, Vol. 38, No. 4 (2005), pp. 356-357Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20206089 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 21:57

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The MIT Press and Leonardo are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toLeonardo.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.174 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:57:50 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

almost a nostalgic longing to give a

more literally human face to this "alien

domain." In the process, Hansen fails

to acknowledge the historical context,

tradition and relevance that the works

he describes in relation to this DFI

(Geisler's Dream of Beauty 2.0, Courch

esne''s Portrait No. 1 and ?' Urbano 's

Touch Me) come from and refer to?

a history that finds its way back through early video art and experimental cin

ema and has everything to do with a

questioning of the human relationship to technological representation and

very little with the digital in particular. What a lot of these early video art

experiments, especially those from

the late 1960s and early 1970s, have

attempted is an exploration of the

machine and the image it produces as

a physical manifestation.

Undoubtedly, for those who are

interested in the purely theoretical side

of the narrative, Hansen's insistence on

bodily affection renders a fascinating read. However, for those of us who are

interested in theories of (new) media

art, this book has, despite the double

newness of its title, very little to offer.

In the way that Bergson almost a cen

tury ago expressed his ideas in terms

of "images," and a few decades ago

everything for Deleuze was "cinema,"

Hansen has updated the terminology to

the more contemporary "new media."

Hansen's theoretical explorations would have been more interesting from

a new media point of view if he had not

shunned everything that is not a literal

portrayal of the human body and instead had explored Bergsonian affec

tive bodily framing in works such as

Maurizio Bolognini's Sealed Computers? a work that consists of 200 computers connected in a digital network. Each

computer generates, manipulates and

forwards digital images. None of these

computers is connected to an output

device; consequently human eyes will

never see any of the images.

Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American Art edited by Elaine H. Kim, Margo

Machida and Sharon Mizota. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA,

U.S.A., 2003. 233 pp., illus. Trade.

ISBN: 0-520-23535-5.

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen,

Hogeschool Gent, fan Delvinlaan 115,

9000 Gent, Belgium. E-mail: <stefaan.

vanryssen @pandora. be>.

There is no doubt that Asian Americans

have suffered severe discrimination

over the past century. Many were

imprisoned in concentration camps before and during the Second World

War, some have been accused of anti

American activities and generally they have been regarded as second or third

class citizens?if citizens at all?good

enough to do only the most menial

jobs. Individuals have risen to high places, but they are the exception. Most

still live in ghettos, whether by choice

or by necessity, and even though they

perform far above average at universi

ties, they are still represented far below

proportionality in the media, public office and all kinds of institutions, with

the possible exception of academic

circles.

In the first part of Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes, Elaine H. Kim, a professor of

Asian American and Comparative Eth

nic Studies at the University of Califor

nia, Berkeley, follows the road taken by a number of Asian American artists

from the early 20th century on and

analyzes the range of possible positions

they have taken in the debate on their

place in American art in general. Some

have chosen to emphasize their cultural

origins, their identity as Asian Ameri

cans and the particular flavor their

background gives to their being Amer

ican. Others have tried to be just American among Americans, neither

stressing nor denying their heritage. The similarities with the problems faced by black and women artists

abound.

The second part of the book,

"Gallery," consists of 24 color images of

works by Asian American artists, each

with a short description and interpreta tion by artist and web designer Sharon

Mizota. Brief as these are, they beauti

fully illustrate the possible relations

between the artistic expression, politi cal stance, and technical proficiency of the artists, and they are a perfect

upbeat for what follows in the third and final part: "Interchanges." This

is a collection of short interpretative

essays by 24 commentators, each paired with one of the artists from the second

part. The contributors are cultural

critics, artists, social activists, curators

and scholars from African American,

Latino and Native American heritages.

Encountering artists and works of art

with which they were largely unfamiliar afforded the writers in Fresh Talk an un

usual opportunity to reflect on how they construct meaning when looking at and

writing about art, and on what culturally and historically specific frames of refer ence they bring to that process (xiii).

Of course, not all of these essays are

as brilliant as Odili Donald Odita's

reflections on the work of Vietnamese

photographer Pipo Nguyen-Duy in the

light of his own forced migration from

Biafra, but none is less than surprising and eye opening?at least for this Euro

pean reader.

As a bonus to the introductions and

the conversations, the book has short

biographical notes on all the artists and

commentators, which come in handy for further study. And if that is not

enough, it is simply a very beautifully laid-out book. A pleasure to read and to

browse through, one would almost call

it a coffee-table book, without the nega tive overtones of that label.

Women, Art and Technology edited by Judy Malloy. MIT Press,

Cambridge, MA, U.S.A., 2004. 530 pp., illus. Trade. ISBN: 0-262-13424-1.

Reviewed by Stefaan Van Ryssen,

Hogeschool Gent, fan Delvinlaan 115,

9000 Gent, Belgium. E-mail: <stefaan.

vanryssen@pandora. be>.

There are many reasons why a book

with this title should not be published at all, the main one being that no one

would think of writing or editing its mirror image, "Men, Art & Technol

ogy." For some decades, women have

been at the forefront of developments in art and technology, as they have

been in diplomacy, politics, gardening and medicine. Yes and no. The facts

are there, the names as well, but per

ception is different and recognition

appears to lag behind. Although art

and technology and their common

ground may be the playfield of women

and men alike, women seem to be

absent in the public eye, or at least in

the public image at large. As is the case

in many fields, women are underrepre sented or misrepresented in the media

and in public debate. No doubt it will take a few more generations before this

situation is corrected, if ever. Mean

while, books such as this one are neces

sary. Annoying as it may be for the

reader who acknowledges and appreci ates the contribution of women in the

field, it is important that this contribu

tion is documented, inventoried, pub

356 Leonardo Reviews

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.174 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:57:50 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

lished and critically evaluated so as not

to let memory fade and public opinion hide what is clearly visible for the knowl

edgeable. The book originates from a Leonardo

Journal project of the same name, try

ing to do what it takes to put the work

of women artists and creators of tech

nology in the spotlight. It is a com

pendium of the work of women artists

who have played a central role in the

development of new media practice. The book has a series foreword, a

foreword proper, a preface and an

introduction, of which we shall say

nothing more. In the essays of the first

section, "Overviews," five authors?

women, obviously?develop the main

threads that hold together 4 decades of artistic creation by women. From the

very beginnings in the 1960s and 1970s

up to more recent works in the realm

of telecommunications art and the

Web, the reader gets a well-informed

overview of factual history and land

mark works by groundbreaking artists

and curators. It is not surprising to see

how in so many new areas of develop ment in art and technology, the first

exploratory steps have been taken by men and women alike, even though the

names of the women may have faded

faster than those of their male contem

poraries. The second and largest section of the

book has 26 contributions by women

artists about their work, their goals, their obsessions and their successes.

In my opinion, this is undoubtedly the

most important part of the book and

the real rationale for its publication, as most of these previously published

writings are hard to come by today.

Moreover, most of these short pieces are delightfully written, giving evidence of the clarity of vision, the enthusiasm, the necessity and the "drive" behind

these artists' works. There are contribu

tions from Steina Vasulka and Dara

Birnbaum, Donna Cox and Judith

Barry, Nell Tenhaaf and Char Davies, Linda Austin and Dawn Stoppiello, to

name but a few. And the ones that I

cannot list for the sake of brevity are

just as interesting and necessary as

these.

The third part has another five

essays that shed light on the subject from a slightly different angle. Jaishree K. Odin does some cartwheels in a

deconstructive reconstruction of Shel

ley Jackson's Patchwork Girl and this

approach obligingly quenches the thirst

for any postmodern jargon. Simone

Osthoff and Martha Burkle Bonecchi

write some very interesting pieces on

the contributions from Brazil and the

situation of women in developing coun

tries. Carol Stakenas connects the poli tics of the Web with the fight against

HIV/AIDS, and finally, Zoe Sofia peeks into a future that may be posthistoric, transhuman and extraterrestrial but

will still have to acknowledge the exis

tence of the many voices and many visions of women artists.

As I said before, this is a necessary book because it brings together so

many important artists. Its weakness,

however, lies in the essays of the last

section. Although they are interesting in themselves, more space could have

been given to the historical overviews

of the first section, possibly integrating some of the ideas and facts from the

final ones. Why, indeed, tell the Brazil

ian story separately from the main

"herstory," and why give a separate section to activist artists unless, of

course, the authors of the main over

views have for some reason or other

overlooked those aspects? Anyway, this

is an important book, just like the artists and the works it illustrates.

Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music edited by Christoph Cox and Daniel

Warner. Continuum Press, New York,

NY, 2004. 472 pp. Trade, paper. ISBN:

0-8264-1614-4; ISBN: 0-8264-1615-2.

Reviewed by Dene Grigar, Texas Woman 's

University, Dent?n, TX, U.S.A. E-mail:

< dgrigar@twu. edu >.

I was sitting in a North Texas bar with

my copy of Audio Culture on the counter

in front of me. A neatly dressed man in

his late 30s who had just come to the

bar to buy a drink struck up a conversa

tion with my companion and me while

he waited for service. When he saw the

book, our conversation turned to its

contents. Was Karlheinz Stockhausen

included? (There are two essays by the

composer.) Was there an essay about

experimental music in the book?

(There is a whole section devoted to

experimental music.) Did it contain a

good reference section? (There are

seven different sections.) Picking up the book, he thumbed through its

pages. I watched him scan the various

essays. Then he took out his pen and

jotted down the ISBN number. An

aspiring electronic musician, he said he

had been looking for a book "like this one" to read.

I tell this story because it illustrates

the kind of reaction many readers will

have toward Christoph Cox and Daniel

Warner 's Audio Culture. I, for one, anno

tated the book severely?I marked it up in various colors of highlighters and

pens and dogeared its pages?so much

of what it offers is vital to my work and

even those articles that are not fasci

nated me nonetheless. To be honest, no

one looking at the collection of 57 well

chosen essays written by some of the

biggest names in music and reprinted from books and publications well noted

for their contribution to music theory will be able to resist reading and buying the book.

In fact, there is so much that makes

this book valuable that it is difficult to name it all. Both the content and the

structure of Audio Culture add to its

strength. Essays by futurist Luigi Rus

solo, musician Edgard V?rese, theorist

Marshall McLuhan, several by Brian

Eno, Pauline Oliveros, Glenn Gould,

Umberto Eco, several by John Cage, artist L?szl? Moholy-Nagy and, of

course, Stockhausen are among the

many eclectic readings included in the

book. Some of the most interesting

essays come from Mary Russo and

Daniel Warner ("Rough Music, Futur

ism, and Postpunk Industrial Noise

Bands"), Simon Reynolds ("Noise" and

"Post-Rock"), McLuhan ("Visual and

Acoustic Space"), Ola Stockfelt ("Ade

quate Modes of Listening") and Kim Cascone ("The Aesthetics of Failure").

Essays at times reference one another

(as in Henry Cowell talking about V?rese in "The Joys of Noise"), engage in debate (as in Iain Chambers and Pierre Schaeffer talking about listen

ing) , and build upon others' theories

(as in Russo and Warner's talking about

Russolo's futurist views). The end result

is a complete and cohesive treatment of

modern music. Anyone who has edited

a collection knows that such an out

come is not an easy one to attain, but it

is certainly achieved here.

Divided into two parts, "Theories"

and "Practices," containing three and

six sections respectively, Audio Culture

offers essays that address such topics as

definitions and approaches to music,

modes of listening, electronic repro

duction, types of music, DJ culture

and electr?nica, to name just a few.

Included with the essays is, as suggested

previously, an abundance of reference

Leonardo Reviews 357

This content downloaded from 195.34.79.174 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 21:57:50 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions