A Short Review on "New Media Futures: The Rise of Women in the Digital Art"

A book published by the University of Illinois Press (2018)

A Short Review by Reza Shirmarz

"Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon, and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world." (Jane Addams)

New Media Futures: The Rise of Women in the Digital Art (edited by D. J. Cox, E. Sandor & J. Fron) scrutinizes the digital art movements by women who produced new forms of art while being active in "digital media arts and education" in the Midwest. The book consists of three main parts and examines the professional careers and works of 16 women artists. It shows how creatively these female pioneers made artistic contributions to what now we call the world of digital as well as social media. It cultivates the art events which combined "social feminist change, artistic energy, and technological innovation" at the University of Illinois and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1980s to 1990s. Autobiographies written by the artists themselves help the readers to gain a real understanding of their personal as well as professional lives. This interdisciplinary revolution happened as the women artists built up new bonds with the scientific milieu while  Chicago-based women artists were ostracized in traditional venues, worked independently and presented their artworks in independent spaces and galleries. Digital games, virtual reality, PHSColograms, Internet browser-based art, graphic tools for medical research and diagnosis, etc. were profoundly affected by this historic art movement which deeply depended upon technology. 

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Ellen Sandor & (art)n

The first part of New Media Futures (pp. 50-126) which is called Renaissance Teams: Art and Science Collaborations focuses on nine dominant women (Ellen Sandor, Donna J. CoxCarolina Cruz-Neira, Colleen Bushell, Nan Goggin, Mary RasmussenDana PlepysMaxine Brown and Martyl) who "fostered dynamic, cross-institutional collaborations that contributed to the Silicon Prairie." The second chapter which is called The Aesthetics of New Media Expression covers seven women artists who mixed digital photomontage, printmarking, painting, and video art and created "seminal New Media artworks." The 1st chapter of the 1st part of the book, as an example, digs into the life and time of Ellen Sandor, the American new media artist. Ellen Sandor finished her MFA in sculpture from the Art Institute of Chicago. She had the idea of mixing different forms of art including computer graphics. Based on her interdisciplinary creativity, she established a new medium called PHSColograms, i.e. "the photography of virtual reality (VR) and computer graphics that can be viewed reflectively or backlit as multidimensional photographs and sculptural installations" (p. 50). She was lucky to work with a number of great artists, scientists, thinkers and technologists such as Karl Wirsum, Ed Paschke, Chris Landreth, Donna Cox, Martyl Langsdorf, Miroslaw Rogala, etc. throughout her career. When she moved to Berkeley, California, with her husband, she joined a group of "exciting, intriguing" women and they established the Berkeley part of the National Organization for Women. In a part of the book, she refers to their collaborative efforts: "Hanging out with these pioneers helped me build my confidence for future endeavors. It was a lot of fun but we didn’t realize the full extent of what was going to happen. Most of us knew that our daughters and our granddaughters would benefit from our efforts and that sons and grandsons would benefit too because there could be more equal partnerships. I just didn’t realize what a revolution it would cause. The same could be said of the digital/scientific revolution." 

In 1982, she kicked off the Art Laboratory with the assistance of Jerry August, where they came up with PHSColograms which was the creative mingle of photography, holography, computer graphics and sculpture. She was quite sure that "the world was going digital" in 1985 (p. 53) and she was eager to co-work with some the masters of that world. She had the opportunity to put together her first Renaissance Team of artists, scientists and mathematicians in 1986 at the University of Illinois. "She was collaborating with everyone and doing cutting-edge work in scientific visualization" (p. 54). She believes that working with early pioneers at that time was quite different from collaborating with the younger generations of artists since "today the tech is ubiquitous" (p. 55). Ellen Sandor got involved in social political work in the 1980s. She refers to those days in a part of New Media Futures and says that: "During this time, many of our friends and artists were dying of AIDS. We felt compelled to visualize our confusion and sorrow, and it seemed logical to visualize the AIDS virus and combine the sculpture with metaphorical symbols to express our feelings" (p. 55).

Donna J. Cox (1988)

Donna J. Cox is another American woman pioneer in "the art of scientific data visualization for discovery, outreach, and education" (p. 70) whose professional endeavors are analyzed in the book. She was identified by her family as "the little artist" since she began to draw and craft in her childhood. She says that: "By the 1970s, I was showing drawings in an art gallery at the Public Market in Seattle, but I didn’t start a formal art education until my latter twenties, after I was married and had my daughter, Elizabeth. She often became the subject matter of drawings, art photography, and eventually digital imagery" (p. 72). She studies art and science at Madison and got involved in computer graphics while she was a graduate student. Later, she created "algorithmic art" and synthesized digital images. She used Xerox photographic printing on cloth and paper. She met Ellen Sandor in 1986 and they collaborated with other artists like George Francis and Ray Idaszak and created the Venus image. "The Venus image had become iconic and represented much more than a digital art sculpture. The Venus and derivative characters covered magazines and newspapers" (p. 76). Other women artists in this part of the book are Carolina Cruz-Neira who was active in the areas such as dance, virtual reality, CAVE, VROOM and digital PHSColograms, Colleen Bushell in mosaic Internet browser, scientific visualization, information visualization, and graphic design, Nan Goggin in Internet and web-based art, CAVE, and graphic design, Mary Rasmussen in morphing/scientific visualization, medical visualization, web development, virtual reality, as well as digital PHSColograms, Dana Plepys in Video art, iGrams, and digital preservation, Maxine Brown in Computer graphics, CAVE, and networking, and finally Martyl who was the creator of  ideas like Doomsday Clock, Mylar, or was active in landscape painting, drawing, and digital PHSColograms (Figure 1).

Figure 1








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