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Gendernauts in a Contested Zone.
Exploring Gender Identity Media Art in Times of ongoing Wars of Desire and Technology

Lecture and Course

KHiB Bergen, 09. 10. - 12. 10. 2000

Verena Kuni M.A., University of Mainz, Germany (*)

invited by Prof. Doris Frohnapfel, KHiB FOTO, as part of the Interdisciplinary Host 2000: FeMale Troubles

Lecture:

Gendernauts in Cyberspace?
Tracing "Trans/Gender Utopias on both Sides of the Interfaces"

"To attempt to occupy a place as speaking subject within the traditional gender frame is to become complicit in the discourse which one wishes to deconstruct." (Sandy Stone)
If this is true, how can I dare to occupy a place as speaking subject in the discourse of technology and gender while at the same time looking for possibilities to transgress gender boundaries within the gendered frame of electronic networks?
In my lecture, I want to show that cyberfeminist theory used as a critical tool and a practice may offer possibilities to accept the challenge: to take care of some of the 'fatal attractions' of the so called new technologies, and to act consciously as a 'false' complicit, or maybe better: as an intelligent double agent in this serious game.
Therefore, my aim is not to give a resume or overview on the issue of "trans/gender", but to try a first approach by focussing gender itself as an interface in a contested zone that is generated by the interplay between myths and realities of these new technologies - and to ask for it's capacity and potential for that what I would like to call "trans/gender utopias".
Starting with different readings and definitions of the term "transgender", I would like to introduce a broader view with the perspective of "trans/gender" focussing on transgression as a continuous movement of performing gender(s) that makes use of different 'technologies of gender' (Theresa de Lauretis) including a variety of related strategies like parody and masquerade, while at the same time rejecting any notion of 'passing as'.
From this point of view, by looking at the example of different social, communicative and esthetic practices in the field of electronic networks I want to take a closer look onto the impact of information- and communication technologies on "trans/gender utopias". While these technologies are often discussed as providing new possibilities to blur and to transcend gender boundaries similar to those the biotechnologies (from hormonal therapy to surgery) seem to offer for the transgender body, I would claim to chose a more critical approach - especially facing the fact that in front of the screens, there are still biobodies living in a framework of individual and social realities that have an impact not only on the formation of personal concepts of "net identities", but on the indivduals as 'social' and 'iuridical' bodies as well.
Nevertheless, discussing current practices of and research on the so called 'gender swapping' in MUDs and MOOs on the one hand, and asking for artistic imaginations of 'transgender' on the world wide web on the other hand, my aim is not only to point out the traps of pertinent projections and fantasies related to these fields, but at the same time to explore the promises - "the promises of monsters", as Donna Haraway would put it - and perspectives they might offer for queer readings, discourses and performances at the interface of gender.
In this sense, the activities observed in the area of new media will be considered not only as a pool of discoursive methods and artistic practices, but also as a providing useful tools and important complicits on my journey as a "gendernaut in cyberspace" tracing "trans/gender utopias on both sides of the interfaces".

Course / Workshop:

Gendernauts in a Contested Zone.
Exploring Gender Identity Media Art in Times of ongoing Wars of Desire and Technology

In addition to the lecture, from monday afternoon till thursday there will be at least four course meetings offered. These meetings will be devoted to the
- Discussion of the theses proposed in the lecture, the
- Discussion of related texts and art work, the
- Broadening of the scope given by/within the lecture, as well as the
- Introduction and discussion of further material on the issues raised (text & visual material in various media; photography, film/video, webbased projects...).

The general focus of the course meetings will be on theory and artistic practice exploring gender and identity in the field of electronic media. While, regarding the condensed time frame, we should concentrate on a smaller selection of exemplary statements (see the selection of related links on the special online worksheet: gender identity media art), the discussion may open up for a broader perspective on the issues.
Course topics may include: Imaginations of Gender and Identity in the Age of Electronic Media - Configurations of the Cyborg (Cyborg identities - cyborg gender - cyborg sex) - Alien Ressurection(s): Monsters and Metamorphoses - Suck my Code: Cyberfeminist Interventions.
For suggested readings - in print as well as electronic texts - and webbased art projects, see the recommended readings and the recommended viewpoints sections below, and for further material the list with titles and URLs on the special online worksheet: gender identity media art. In addition, I will assemble a collection of exemplary visual material from different areas of art history and contemporary arts to be introduced and discussed during the course meetings.
Anyway, I would also like to encourage students not only to contribute their own ideas and questions, but also to bring in their own stuff in case it is related to the topics raised within the course.

Recommended readings

As the following two texts - both providing important ideas/statements I am a. o. refering to in my lecture - are available not only in print, but also online, I would like to propose them as "basic readings" to be dicussed in plenum:

1) Allucquère Rosanne Stone: The Empire strikes Back. A Post Transsexual Manifesto (1991/1993)
[in print: (Stone 1991) Allucquère Rosanne Stone: The Empire strikes Back. A Post Transsexual Manifesto. In: Body Guards. The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, Ed. Kristina Straub / Julia Epstein, New York 1991
- (Stone 1993) Allucquère Rosanne Stone: The Empire strikes Back. A Post Transsexual Manifesto. In: Camera Obscura, No. 29, 1993]
[online: (Stone 1993) Allucquère Rosanne Stone: The Empire strikes Back. A Post Transsexual Manifesto. 1993]

2) Donna Haraway: A Manifesto for Cyborgs (1983/1985)
[in print: (Haraway 1985) Donna Haraway: A manifesto for Cyborgs. Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980's. In: Socialist Review, No. 80, 1985, pp 65-108; repr. in: Feminisms, Ed. Sandra Kemp / Judith Squires, Cambridge/London 1997; repr. in: The Gendered Cyborg. A Reader, Ed. Gill Kirkup / Linda Janes / Fiona Hovenden / Kathryn Woodward, London/New York 2000, pp 50-57]
[online: (Haraway 1983) Donna Haraway: The Ironic Dream of a Common Language for Women in the Integrated Circuit. Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the 1980s or A Socialist Feminist Manifesto for Cyborgs]

Further recommendations:

...in print:

Butler 1990
Judith Butler: Gender Trouble, New York/London 1990

Halberstam/Livingston 1995
Posthuman Bodies, Hrsg. Judith Halberstam / Ira Livingstone, Bloomington 1995

Kirkup/Janes/Hovenden/Woodward 2000
The Gendered Cyborg. A reader, Hrsg. Gill Kirkup / Linda Janes / Fiona Hovenden / Kathryn Woodward, London/New York 2000

Halberstam 1998
Judith Halberstam: Female Masculinity, London 1998

Haraway 1991
Donna Haraway: Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The Reinvention of Nature, London 1991

Haraway 1997
Donna Haraway: Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium. FemaleMan©_Meets_OncoMouseTM. Feminism and Technoscience. New York/London 1997

Stone 1996
Allucquère Rosanne Stone: The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge/Ms. 1996


...online:

Hoffman 1997
Not Without a Body? Bodily Functions in Cyberspace. A Discussion With Barbara Becker, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Judith S. Donath, Gloria Mark, Christina Schachtner & Allucquère Rosanne Stone, Ed. Ute Hoffmann, WZB Discussion Paper FS II 97-107, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Berlin 1997, see: link

Reid 1994
Elizabeth Reid: Identity and the Cyborg Body (1994), see: link

Schuman 1998
Joan Schuman: Either/Or... Both/And. Field Notes on Gender Ambiguity & Medical Technologies. In: switch online: Electronic Gender / Art at the Interstice (1998), see: link

Please note: An extended bibliography with further recommendations is avaliable from Prof. Frohnapfel (or directly via email from V. Kuni).

Recommended viewpoints

Please take a look at Shu Lea Cheang's Brandon Project(1997/99), as I will not only refer to this project in my lecture, but also chose it to be discussed in train of the course meetings.
For more related links please browse the section "Choice of Links" on the special online worksheet: gender identity media art.

Additionally, the following films are closely related to the issues I am refering to in my lecture, so they might be also part of the plenary discussions:
"Gendernauts. A Journey through shifting Identities" (1999), by Monika Treut;
"The Brandon Teena Story" (USA 1998), by Susan Muska/Gréta Ólafsdottir;
"Boys don't Cry" (USA 1999) by Kimberly Pierce; and - last, but not least -
"Dandy Dust" (1999), by Hans Scheirl.

Furthermore, I would like to draw your attention to the following artists whose work might be present in books and exhibition catalogues hopefully to be found in your library and/or your bookshelves (please note the list is neither mirroring my personal favorites nor a chartlist in the sense of "the best of", but considered as a collection of suggested visual material we could refer to in our discussions):
Janine Antoni ("Mum and Dad", 1993/94) - Matthew Barney (Cremaster Series) - Claude Cahun - Marcel Duchamp (as Rrose Sélavy, photographed by Man Ray) - Lukas Duwenhögger - Dominic Eichler - Lyle Ashton Harris - Nan Goldin - Jürgen Klauke ("Self Performance", 1972/73; "Transformer", 1973) - Ines van Lamsweerde (a.o. "The Forest" Series, 1995) - Zoe Leonhard - Ma Liuming - Urs Lüthi - Yasumasa Morimura - Catherine Opie - Claudia Reinhardt - Ugo Rondinone ("I don't live here anymore", 1999) - Cindy Sherman (a.o. "Untitled/Double Portrait" with Richard Prince, 1980) - Vibeke Tandberg ("Faces", 1998)

Reproductions of works of the artists listed above are i.e. to be found in the following four exhibition catalogues:

Bernadac/Macarde 1995
Femininmasculin. Le sexe de l'art, Org. Marie-Laure Bernadac / Bernard Macardé, Exh. Cat. MNAM Centre George Pompidou, Paris 1995 [text in french]

Blessing 1997
Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. Gender Performance in Photography, Exh. Cat. The Guggenheim Museum, New York, Ed./Org. Jennfifer Blessing, New York 1997 [text in english]

Eiblmayer/Snauwaert/Wilmes/Winzen 2000
Die verletzte Diva. Hysterie, Körper, Technik in der Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts / The Wounded Diva. Hysteria, Body and Technology in the 20th Century Art, Ed. Silvia Eiblmayr, Exh. Cat. Munich/Innsbruck/Baden-Baden, Köln 2000 [text in german and in english]

Kohlhoff/Kriegerowski 1999
Rosa für Jungs/Hellblau für Mädchen, Hrsg. Kolja Kohlhoff/Christine Kriegerowski, Exh. Cat. NGBK Berlin, Berlin 1999 [text in german and in english]