PHENOMENAL FEMINISMS is the title of a keynote I proudly delivered at the FAEN – Female Artistic Experiments Norway in Oslo, organized by Zane Cerpina.
The keynote takes off in the book Digital Dynamics in Nordic Contemporary Art (2019) with the question: What does it mean to do ‘female experiments’? Art’s experiments are phenomenal microspheres. What we perceive as real and imagined phenomena, when we move closer, are molecules, photons, and symbols configured into form and meaning. In speculating on trajectories of feminisms from quantum physics, molecular biology, and neuroscientific theory, I inquire into what it means – or could mean – to experiment with art through phenomenal feminisms. I propose a way of seeing art’s experiment not as a participant in grand narratives determining our fate with technology as a fixed-directional drive towards the end but rather as something that begins, that gives life, that enables different ways of working with matter, producing knowledge, and affecting the world through art.
With thanks to artist Katja Aglert for inspiring conversation and for allowing me to exemplify points in this talk with imagery from the art series Aurora Rehearsals.
Livestream of the keynote here.
The research for the keynote feeds into a monograph in development and also extends from my work on Expanded Reality at the Neuro Design Lab of artist and professor Maurice Benayoun at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, with thanks to the Carlsberg Foundation’s Internationalization Fellowship.
Image: Katja Aglert, When the Light Switched off the Sky (2009), printed matter, part of the exhibition When The Light Has Switched Off the Sky (construction #2, Northern Lights), a light-based installation by the artist Katja Aglert shown 2009 Jan 17 – Feb 22 at Konsthall 1.0 in Jönköping, Sweden.