Feminism(S) and Imaging Technology in Latin America @ Western University , October 23, 2019

Thanks Alena Robin and Christine A Sprengler for inviting me to give a talk at their Graduate Seminar with Hispanic Studies and Visual Art Students.

In this talk, I presented a genealogy of women artists that experimented with analog, electronic and computational imagery in Latin America. Specifically, I look at how Latin American women became, not only producers but also enablers of the use of imaging technology in various capacities. In so doing, they transformed and challenged media representations in art and the gendering of technology. I will present two loose clusters of affinities between female artists working in Latin America with electronic images.  The first cluster focuses on artists who developed unique engagements between self and technology and challenged dominant perceptions about the gendering of technology. This first group of artists transitioned from traditional artistic formats to experiments with performance, happenings, installations, closed-circuit television, computers, and electronic images leading to some of the most experimental engagements with videography in the region. The second group is composed of artists who developed an audiovisual language to challenge media representations of femininity while simultaneously re-inscribing the female body as the site of violence and political potential in response to military dictatorships. More broadly, this talk provides an overview of the complex ways in which imaging technology and gender critique intersected in the work of Latin American women artists to inform a more nuanced understanding of the global convergence of feminism(s), video art, and technology.