In attempting to create an image of ‘future woman’ we, in fact, had great difficulties. How would a woman of the not-too distant future look? Would she be an aggressive power dresser with cropped hair, would she wear a Gaultier lurex cat-suit with conical breast-plate or would she have Stelarc-like robotic prosthetics enhancing various parts of her body? In making the image, we decided to go with a more playful sci-fi type creature suggesting a post-gender hybrid.
The strand of DNA behind the image could imply that genetic engineering may result in perverse bug/human creatures crawling from a post-apocalyptic genetic haze, but we prefer to imagine that DNA could be altered to create resilient and defiant non-specific gendered creatures. Through imaging a hypothetical creature, we refer to the science- fiction gothic imagination which creates a future full of strange beings, species cross-polinisation and scientific in-breeding. ‘Pod woman’ (as she is affectionately known by the members of VNS Matrix) talks to the literary and visual imagination which (inspired by medical, scientific and technological developments) creates visions of what our future may be like. ‘Future woman’ for us is certairily not the offspring of an unimaginable coupling, but rather we are constructing ‘future woman’ through an exploration of gender, identity, multiplicity and biological indeterminism.
Event Dates
- Date & Time
- Wed 6th Jul, 1994, @ 16:30–18:30
- Event
- Cyberfeminists: Going Down and Biting the Code
- Venue
- Ana Hotel
- Conference
- Media Futures: Policy and Performance International Conference
- Dates
- 6/07/1994 – 8/07/1994
- Location
- Gold Coast, QLD, Australia
Attached Files
- Media Futures: Policy and Performance International Conference, 1994. Programme [pdf 6.29MB]
- VNS Matrix Conference Paper: Cyberfeminists: Going Down and Biting the Code [pdf 2.9MB]