The Next Cyberfeminist International conference will be held in Rotterdam from the 8th to the 11th of March 1999. This conference, initiated by the cyberfeminist group Old Boys Network and titled 'Strategies for a New Cyberfeminism', is a follow-up on the first Cyberfeminist International which took place in 1997 at the Documenta X in Kassel, Germany. One strong impetus for initiating this conference was to make information available about the many ways in which new communications, imaging and medical technologies are having profound impact on the lives, work and health of women locally and globally. Therefore, the NCI will start off with discussing the myths, utopias and histories of Cyberfeminism so far, and will continue with considering how new technologies are used by and affect women nowadays. This will be assessed through the three main themes of Feminist/Female Hacking, Women/Media/Politics/Technology, and Activism/Resistance. Conclusions, problems and points of view raised at NCI will be then further developed and put in a larger context at N5M3 through several presentations and lectures.
Cyberfeminism as a whole opens up new possibilities for several forms of feminist zeal, both in the field of theory as in everyday practice. Issues of geographical embodied versus virtual identity and subjectivity, of feminist activism and hacktivism through the net, of the relation to current everyday women's experiences, of the intersection with discourses on class, sexuality, ethnicity and geographical location, and of the relation with feminist histories will be addressed. Furthermore, the connection of cyberfeminism to various other media forms like the printed press, film and e-mail used for feminist purposes will be explored at N5M3 as well as potential activist and theoretical alliances regarding common feminist goals.
* contact person: Ingrid Hoofd (ingrid@waag.org) | |
