On Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991
Location: Mudam - Musée d'Art Contemporain du Luxembourg
Language: English
When new technologies emerge and their possible uses have not yet been determined, their horizon – their symbolic meaning, the way they are used, and the utopias associated with them – is still open. Which concepts of the computer as an artistic tool and as a technology that can both solidify and break up social structures have been developed by women artists since the 1960s? In addition to the diverse conceptual approaches, the tour also focuses on the importance of playful, aimless exploration of a tool that was not invented for artistic purposes. The conditions under which female artists in the 1960s and 1970s were able to gain access to computers at all are also addressed. For when the first issue of the magazine that gave the exhibition its title, Radical Software, was published, the editors made it clear in the lead article what they saw as the significance of artists' appropriation of new media: “Power is no longer measured in land, labor, or capital, but by access to information and the means to disseminate it.”
Biography
Margit Rosen is an art historian and curator, serving as Head of the Department of Collections, Archives & Research at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe since 2016. She has taught at several universities, including the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe (HfG), the Danube University Krems, the Academy of Fine Arts Münster, the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and the State University of Milan. In addition to her teaching, Rosen has delivered lectures at institutions such as Princeton University, the Louvre, the Deutsches Museum, the Centre Pompidou, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge.
Her research and curatorial work center on 20th- and 21st-century art, with a particular focus on the intersections between art, technology and science. Her publications include A Little-Known Story About a Movement, a Magazine, and the Computer’s Arrival in Art (MIT Press, 2011).
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