Women Video and the Web

This project was a coproduction between Studio
XX and Groupe
Intervention Vidéo (GIV). For this project
we invited four women artists to participate in the creation
of works that juxtapose approaches incorporating video and
the Web. The works were launched at Femmes
Br@nchées #45 on the 18th of december 2002.

Taking into account the reality of technological convergence
which now orients digital productions, Groupe Intervention
Video and Studio XX proposed to four women artists, the possibility
to create works bringing together visions and practices around
video and the Web. Out of this came critical and militant
works, on questions of media representations, gender, space
and militarization. Four voices, strong and uncompromising,
which express different approaches and negociate these new
conceptual zones linked to binary data and computerized procedures.

Diyan Achjadi
http://www.achdiyan.com

Once Upon A Time invokes a familiar language of fairy tales
aimed at children. A pink house becomes the locus for a series
of possible fictions. The main character is simply referred
to as the girl. There are a number of figures in the site,
all of which could inhabit this character. Who is telling
a story, and whose story is being told?

Diyan Achjadi’s current work explores the gendered representation
and use of militaristic attributes in news media, popular
culture, and toys. She received an MFA in Print Media from
Concordia University (2002) and is currently Assistant Professor
of Visual Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County
(UMBC).

Jody Bielun
http://www.hybrid-space.com/livingrooms

LivingRooms is a touchable, responsive webspace that acts
as a subversive critique on the ways that we live. The user
explores a series of “rooms” whose names closely
resemble the functions of rooms in a house (Eg.Room of Bathing,
Room of Sleep, Room of Consumption, etc). As the user triggers
changes and plays with her environment, things are also happening
that are beyond her control and the environment is playing
her.

Jody Bielun is currently working on a Master’s degree
in Architecture at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
A recurring theme in her work is the exploration of the connections
between nature, technology, the body, and architecture. Her
work has been exhibited in Montreal, Toronto, Mexico, Italy,
New York, and Ottawa.

pomgrenade
http://www.pomgrenade.org/

Balkan Mediations stems out of the many questions raised for
North Americans by the 1999 NATO bombing of Kosovo and Yugoslavia
in our current age of perpetual mediatised wars. Balkan Mediations
takes the ironies of today’s intimate links between
media and military technologies as its point of creative intervention,
examining the incongruities and brutalities of a context in
which, to paraphrase Bob Ostertag, we now use the same tools
to play, create media, and kill.

pomgrenade has been active in experimental and documentary
film and video production, community radio and sound, and
all around media jamming and shit-disturbing since the past
ten years. In her spare time, she pursues graduate work in
media and communication studies, where she researches and
publishes on the relationship between current media representations
of immigration and the increasingly racist and exclusionary
nature of Canadian immigration policy.

Mara Verna
http://www.studioxx.org/coprods/hottentotvenus

Sarah Baartman (1789-1816), also known as The Hottentot Venus,
was taken from South Africa and exhibited as a freak in Europe,
until her death in Paris in 1816. Considered living proof
as the missing link between the highest form of animal life
and the lowest form of human life, renowned French scientist
Georges Cuvier dissected her corpse upon her death. For the
next 150 years, Sarah's preserved brain, genitals and skeleton
were on display at Le Musee de l'homme in Paris. In May 2002,
Sarah's remains were finally allowed to retun home to her
descendants for burial.

On location in South Africa and France this year, artist Mara
Verna presents the culmination of her work surrounding this
historical figure through the site www.hottentotvenus.com.
The work will be presented in association with the traveling
exhibition Rien n'a été perdu, which opened
in Paris on November 22nd 2002 at La Vitrine Gallery. It will
then be exhibited at La Centrale Gallery, Montreal, in February
2003. www.maraverna.com