Dismantling the Patriarchy, Bit by Bit: Art, Feminism, and Digital Technology

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In Dismantling the Patriarchy, Bit by Bit, Judith K. Brodsky makes a ground-breaking intellectual leap by connecting feminist art theory with the rise of digital art. Technology has commonly been considered the domain of white men butunrecognized until this bookfemale artists, including women artists of color, have been innovators in the digital art arena as early as the late 1960s when computers first became available outside of government and university laboratories. Brodsky, an important figure in the feminist art world, looks at various forms of visual art that are quickly becoming the dominant art of the 21st century, examining the work of artists in such media as video (from pioneers Joan Jonas and Adrian Piper to Hannah Black today), websites and social networking (from Vera Frenkel to Ann Hirsch), virtual and augmented reality art (Jenny Holzer to Hyphen-Lab), and art using artificial intelligence. She also documents the work of female-identifying, queer, transgender, and Black and brown artists including Legacy Russell and Micha Crdenas, who are not only innovators in digital art but also transforming technology itself under the impact of feminist theory. In this radical study, Brodsky argues that their work frees technology from its patriarchal context, illustrating the crucial need to transform all areas of our culture in order to achieve the goals of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter (BLM), and Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) representation, to empower female-identifying and Black and brown people, and to document their contributions to human history.

Reviews

At last! A book that restores women to the history of digital art and shows how they transformed it. What is unique about Brodskys brilliant book are the firm lines of connection from the feminist art movement of the 1970s to the digital art of today. Brodsky highlights women digital artists informed by feminist theory, who are dismantling the patriarchy, subverting and replacing the hierarchic binaries at its root. * Norma Broude & Mary D. Garrard, Professors Emeritae of Art History, American University, USA, and authors of The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s *
Dismantling the Patriarchy, Bit by Bit is a broad look at women who embrace feminist theory and use technology to create art. Brodsky argues that these artists have influenced the development of technology, which is widely considered a male domain. * Kathy Rae Huffman, Curator, co-founder of the online community FACES: Art, Gender, Technology *
This book reclaims and contextualizes important female practitioners of technologylike Joan Jonas, Charlotte Moorman, Jenny Holzer, Vera Frenkel, Muriel Magenta, Laurie Anderson, Dara Birnbaum, VNS Matrix, subRosa, and countless othersand resituates them on a par with their male contemporaries. This is a must-read for all interested in Feminist Art and New Media. * Maura Reilly, author of Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating *

Author Bio

Judith K. Brodsky is Distinguished Professor Emerita (1978-2001) in the Department of Visual Arts at Rutgers University, USA. She is the founder of the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, established by Brodsky in 1986, renamed the Brodsky Center in her honor in 2006, and now located at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Brodsky is also the co- founder of the Rutgers University Institute for Women and Art (the Rutgers Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities) and The Feminist Art Project. She is a former president of the College Art Association, the Womens Caucus for Art, and ArtTable. Her publications include The Fertile Crescent, Gender, Art, and Society (2012) and Junctures in Womens Leadership: The Arts (2018).