**Ed. Judy Malloy. Women, Art, and Technology. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. 576pp., illus. Cloth, $39.95.**

By Jayne Fenton Keane

Women, Art, and Technology is one of a series of publications from Leonardo discussing innovative work using the convergence of art, science and technology. Produced following the women, art, and technology project which began in 1993 and was aimed at increasing the numbers of women writing about and thereby achieving recognition for their work in technology-based media, this text brings together some of those writings in a kaleidoscope of techno/artistic endeavour which also covers social, political and cultural aspects of the role of women in multi-media over several decades.

Judy Malloy opens the volume with a discussion of gender roles at the intersection of art and new media and examines such questions as gender specificity, boundary disruption and emerging technologies. Feminine perspective is the foundation of the text, and the question of an exclusively feminine arena of technical artwork is raised with the answer providing a yes/no dichotomy dependant on whether artist or viewer can find an exclusive content in a particular work—i.e., could this work have been conceived from a masculine viewpoint? (Annick Bureaud). Interestingly, one artist points out, no one ever asks a male artist what is exclusively masculine in his work. Not all the artists who contributed to this volume consider their work to be exclusively feminist, and some of them deliberately avoid this stereotype, preferring their work to speak for itself. Some identify more with a cultural or social agenda, viewing feminism as a middle-class white issue. Yet others consider their work to be feminist even if it has no apparent feminist content. While some artists believe that gender should not be an issue in the arts, these texts illustrate that it has been necessary for there to be a period of “catching up.” Since Mary Ann Evans had to write under the pen name of George Eliot women have had to fight to overcome the suppression of their creativity in a patriarchal society.

A series of critical overviews provides an arena for integrating artistic expression with viewer understanding. In “Women and the Search for Visual Intelligence,” Patric Prince presents work by women artists using complex computer technology and looks at such questions as the specialised intellectual capability required in the field of computer art. The emerging role of interactivity in multi-media artistic creation by women is discussed by Margaret Morse (“Poetics of Interactivity”); where virtual reality technology allows artists to explore the ephemeral and surreal and the liaison between mind, body, and machine encourages active participation by the viewer. Sheila Pinkel (“Women, Body, Earth”) writes about women artists who have used corporeal or environmental aspects in their work. She emphasises that women artists must remain true to their inner voice even in their struggle for equality. Anna Couey (“Restructuring Power: Telecommunications Works Produced by Women”) interviews early women network artists who have influenced cross-cultural and individual interaction via communications technology. Kathy Brew (“Through the Looking Glass”) looks at multi-media and contemporary art. She holds the tenet of “journey as destination” where artistic input is more important than the media tool: some artists losing this concept by becoming bogged in the manipulation of sometimes complex technology.

Following the overviews are papers by women techno/artists, some originally published in the Leonardo journal. Since the introduction of the video camera, women have been involved in creative activity in all spheres of technology. These papers detail some of the arenas used by women artists for innovative art/technology projects.

Pioneer installation work by video artist Steina (“My Love Affair With Art: Video and Installation Work”) used layering techniques to provide a 180deg. view of space not available to the human eye. Joan Jonas (“Transmission”) is a performance artist who used mirrors to “alter and fragment” space. Influenced by Noh and Kabuki theatre she incorporated their measured pace into her performance. She then evolved into film and video installation work but still maintained her theme of space manipulation by using montage and cut and paste techniques. She used video performance to provide multiple concurrent points of view, with the viewer and performer being both inside and outside. Dara Birnbaum attempts to deconstruct stereotyped media images by appropriating these images and using them to create landscapes for maintenance of individual control, in an increasingly media-manipulated society. Jo Hanson (“Small Leaps to Ascend the Apple Tree”) created an art piece called Gaia Does the Laundry to bring attention to the response of earth systems to violations against the environment.

Hanson used man-made technology to focus on earth-based technology and proposed an artist in residence project for a waste disposal company designed to raise awareness of ecological issues. Other artists also use technology to raise environmental awareness, for example, Harrison and Harrison (“Shifting Positions Toward the Earth: Art and Environmental Awareness”) created the Lagoon Cycle as a discourse on how our actions affect each other and the environment. Interactive installation work by Sony Rapoport, Nancy Paterson and Lynn Hershman pioneered viewer participation via technology. Other papers describe the use of algorithms, (Cox) computer graphics and animation (Allen), biotechnology (Tenhaaf) music (Oliveros and Le Prado), dance (Stoppiello, Austin, and Ross), internet (Huffman) virtual reality (Davies) and combinations of these technologies for both artistic endeavour and for social comment. Valerie Soe (“Video Art Povera : Lo-Fi Rules”) overcomes budgetary constraints to her artistic pursuits by using lo-tech video to illustrate the physical and spiritual alienation of immigrants to North America. Laurel (“Tech Work By Heart”) did pioneering research into interactive computer games for girls and designed some of the first such games. “The Do While Studio” (Hall and Hazen) proposed the artist as toolmaker and provided digital designs and solutions in the industrial arena.

Following the individual papers by artists is a series of concluding essays which look at social, cultural and future technology issues for women, art, and technology. Jaishree K Odin (“Embodiment and Narrative Performance”) examines postmodern aspects of the arts and looks at techno/artists who have used hypertext by linking and intermixing media in a way that disrupts continuity and “creates an assemblage of textual fragments that can be folded, unfolded and refolded in a variety of ways” Judy Malloy (its name was Penelope) and Shelley Jackson (Patchwork Girl) used these techniques to highlight the position of women’s creativity in a male dominated society.

Brazilian artist Simone Osthoff looks at multimedia work by Brazilian women artists and differences in female artistic input between North and South America, stating that Brazilian women artists have been more influential in their sphere than their North American counterparts, citing religious and cultural consciousness as being largely responsible for the difference. (“Brazilian Counterparts: Old Histories and New Designs”). Mexican artist Martha Burkle Bonecchi is an information and communication professional who reflects on third-world issues relating to women, art, and technology. She discusses the role of information technology in changing the class status of society into access/non-access to emerging technologies as opposed to merely rich and poor. She also looks at the role of information technology in the emancipation of women in the developing world in “Technology has Forgotten Them: Developing -World Women & New Information Technologies.” Carol Stakenas describes an annual event which mobilizes the art community in promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS by using interactive websites and public place performances and exhibitions. Zoe Sofia concludes with an article on futurity which examines the effects of technology on society and art and the masculine role in using technology to create a future where the human body may become obsolete and technology becomes self perpetuating, as opposed to the feminine treatment of technology as a tool to “at once use and counteract the machine’s anti-body logic” (“Contested Zones: Futurity and Technological Art”).

This last essay may hold one of the keys to the question of gender in techno/art in the different approach to and concept of machine functionality from a masculine or feminine viewpoint. When we look at some of the uses of technology illustrated in these papers we see that there is a predominance of women in the use of technology for vocalisation and body/dance artistry whilst male artists predominate in the instrumental use of technology. Use of computer art may perhaps also illustrate some differences where women who may be less focussed on the nuts and bolts of the digital programme may use it in a different way. As one feminine artist puts it, “I forgot what I had programmed into the computer and was amazed at the result,” thus intensifying the creative mystique available even in this sphere of precision.

The writings themselves serve to illustrate the breakdown of the barriers between art and technology by their presentation as a combination of technical report writing, artistic sensibility, and visual documentation. I came away from this book with a long list of further reading and websites to visit and a greater understanding of not only the role of the feminine in techno/art but of techno/art itself. A large and comprehensive collection, it serves to illustrate that there are no boundaries to the human creative impulse and that preconceptions, stereotypes or any other human limitations, be they artistic, cultural or societal are there to be challenged by the artist.