On the third of December I went to a digital arts
exhibition in Watermans arts centre London.
Watermans arts centre is London’s leading art centre.
They are an independent cinema and theatre and hold year round programmes for
children. They are also an independent charity which means any money funded to
them is used to provide quality service to their visitors. They host various
events and are located in west London on the banks of the river Thames. Their aim
is to bring the local community together.
The name of the event I attended was called “Technology
is not Neutral”. This event had many speakers who worked in the field of digital
arts. These speakers talked about their personal experiences working in this
field of work. Which I found quite interesting as it gave me an insight as to
how different the working world is to the university life I am currently
living. All the speakers who came
forward where women, and they discussed new technologies, artwork and
highlighted the work they have done and currently doing in this field, the aim
of the event was to celebrate female artists contributions to digital arts, the
reason for this is because females are usually underrepresented in this area of
work.
Hannah Redler is an art curator and museum expert. She works with various ambitious associations, and also with international artists and on projects that bring together art, science, technology, multimedia and cinematography.
“She is currently associate curator in residence at the ODL and consultant art curator at the institute of physics. She combines these roles with teaching and other independent projects. From 2005-2014 Hannah was head of science museum arts programme. A role that encompassed being project director for the inaugural curatorial programme a role that encompassed being project director for the inaugural curatorial programme of Media Space, a photography gallery at the Science Museum which opened in 2012”. (Hannah Redler | team | open data institute, no date)
Hannah Redler was one of the speakers who stood out to me she spoke about “Gender Profiling”. The reason this stood out to me is because in today’s society there is still issues regarding gender, and I believe the only way these issues can be addressed is to talk about these issues. Hannah believes in the working world gender shouldn’t be emphasised on. She expresses her thoughts about how she was always comfortable with her gender, but it came to her attention that gender profiling was an issue after speaking to young people about how they identified themselves. With some of them raising the question. Why is gender so important? She now dedicates her time holding talks and speaking at museums about this issue what encourages her to keep up her work, is the feeling of knowing that what she does is appreciated by others. For example at one of her talks a trans woman told her how thankful she is as people who are transgender have to deal with gender discrimination on a daily basis.
Josephine berry was another digital artist who took the platform and spoke about very compelling issues she spoke about the internet, sex and gender. She proposed that the internet was orbited around sex and the female body, I personally would have to agree with this as today we see young girls are oversexualised in media especially over the internet. The idea of the perfect female body is embedded in the female psyche from a young age, she continued to talk about the easy access we have to photoshopped images online. And how these images may potentially cause people, especially women to want to change their appearances to fit society’s expectations of them. I have to agree with this as the evidence is all around us we hear stories of women having plastic surgery to look like a certain celebrity.
Josephine temporarily touched on the use of social media technology such as Instagram by online sensations to promote this idealistic body I believe this is the root cause of the problem, and such websites should have better filter systems in place. To stop nudity and soft porn making through the filter system where they potentially cause harm.
Overall my day at the event was inspiring as I heard digital artists talk about what motivates them to do what they do, and the troubles they have faced on their individual paths to success. It’s given me more insights as to how the working world is, So after university I will be more prepared ,I agree with some aspects of feminism which was presented to me in the event. But not all, as I believe females may be more underrepresented in this field of work due to the fact that digital media is a more male dominated field. I do believe the discrimination that does exist in the industry will be solved by raising more awareness.
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