HISTORY OF GENERATIVE ART - cyberfeminism

In today’s History of Generative Art, we introduce cyberfeminism, which emerged in the early 1990s alongside the rise of the internet, drawing from third-wave feminism, postmodernism, and media theory. It represents an international group of female thinkers, coders, and media artists who critique, theorize, and reshape digital spaces, new media technologies and explore how technology can challenge existing power structures.

VNS Matrix, A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century, 1991, Source: vnsmatrix.net

In the 1990s, the term cyberfeminism was independently coined by British theorist Sadie Plant and the Australian artist collective VNS Matrix. VNS Matrix combined art with French feminist theory to challenge the male-dominated internet. They published the Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century as a statement against traditional norms. Meanwhile, Plant explored how digital technology could shape feminist theory, describing the internet as an inherently feminine, non-linear, and self-replicating space.

Before the term was coined, feminist theorists and artists were already examining the relationship between gender and technology. One of the most significant early influences was Donna Haraway’s 1985 essay, A Cyborg Manifesto, which contributed to the development of cyberfeminism. In this work, Haraway explores the cyborg—a hybrid of machine and organism—as a figure that transcends gender and race. She argues that cyborgs challenge traditional hierarchies and offer a future for overcoming biological determinism while promoting androgyny as an ideal.

Donna Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto, 1985, Source: Macat Library

Old Boys Network, First Cyberfeminist International, 1997, Source: monoskop.org

Cyberfeminism grew in prominence throughout the 1990s, influencing artists and theorists from North America, Australia, Germany, and the UK. A key moment in its history was the 1997 First Cyberfeminist International, organized by the Berlin-based collective Old Boys Network. Held at Documenta X in Kassel, Germany, the event brought together 38 women from 12 countries.

An important artist in the movement is Linda Dement, who challenges gender norms in her artwork Cyberflesh Girlmonster (1995), where she created interactive bodies from scanned female body parts that viewers could engage with, triggering sounds, videos, and texts. Faith Wilding, an American artist, created the Recombinants (1992-1996) collage series, featuring hybrid compositions of machines, plants, humans, and animals, exploring their interconnectedness with technology.

Linda Dement, Cyberflesh Girlmonster, 1995, Source: lindadement.com

Cornelia Sollfrank, Female Extension, 1997, Source: medienkunstnetz.de

Lynn Hershman Leeson, a multimedia artist who often uses interactive technology and film, challenges traditional notions of gender in her work. One of her most iconic projects, CyberRoberta (1996), features a doll with cameras embedded in its eyes, live-streaming its perspective to a website. By seeing through the doll’s eyes, viewers are extending their vision through a technological surrogate.

Cornelia Sollfrank, a member of the Old Boys Network, subverted the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s 1997 Net art competition with the project “Female Extension”. She created 288 fictional female artists with unique identities and submitted them as participants. Using an algorithm, she generated 127 Net art pieces by recombining HTML material from the web. Even though there was a “high number” of female applicants, the prizes ultimately went to male artists. Sollfrank later revealed her intervention, exposing gender bias in digital art.

Lynn Hershman Leeson, CybeRoberta, 1996, Source: altmansiegel.com

By the end of the decade, several critical issues within cyberfeminism emerged. The early optimism that the internet would become a universally liberating space was seen as overly idealistic. In response, in the 2000s, Technofeminism emerged as an evolution of cyberfeminism, integrating science and technology studies with feminist theory to examine gendered aspects of technology beyond the digital world.