“PRODUCING FUTURES: AN EXHIBITION ON POST-CYBER-FEMINISMS”

Curated by Heike Munder

In “A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century” (1991), the Australian artist collective VNS Matrix declared themselves “saboteurs of big daddy mainframe” and “mercenaries of slime,” weaponizing an ecstatic, messy body as a wrench to throw into the gears of tech-bro culture: “corrupting the discourse / we are the future cunt.” “Producing Futures: An Exhibition on Post-Cyber-Feminisms” features VNS Matrix and Lynn Hershman Leeson as examples of the first generation of cyber-feminists; the show will also include a dozen younger international artists, from Tabita Rezaire to Guan Xiao, whose work refracts both cyberspace and gender through the lenses of, for example, social justice movements and the occult. Together, their works underscore the increasingly blurred boundaries between digital technologies and real bodies, especially in installations that feature materials such as DNA-sequencing electronics and mobile kits for hormone biohacking. The show’s catalogue promises to unpack the complexities of today’s cyberfeminisms via texts by Munder and Elsa Himmer, Paul B. Preciado, Yvonne Volkart, and Joanna Walsh.