First CF+ Lab Meeting "Cyberfeminist Legacies, Technofeminist Trajectories, Computational Practices: Where Are We Today?"

CF+ is a project of the Gender/Diversity in Informatics Systems research lab at the University of Kassel, Germany. The project aims to lay the groundwork for revisiting dominant modes and practices of knowledge and artefact production in computer science through cyberfeminist and feminist new materialist lenses. It also aims to consolidate a network of researchers, artists and designers working on and interested in these issues for on-going collaboration. 

This first meeting is dedicated to exploring cyberfeminist legacies and technofeminist as well as computational practices today. The lab meeting will start with a contribution by cyberfeminist pioneer, conceptual artist, interdisciplinary researcher and educator Cornelia Sollfrank (PhD). She was founding member of the collectives frauen-und-technik (Women and Technology, 1992) and -Innen (1994) and initiated and ran the world-wide cyberfeminist network Old Boys Network (1997-2001), including the co-organisation of three international conferences on Cyberfeminism (1997, 1999, and 2001).

In her talk Sollfrank takes a critical look back to the cyberfeminism(s) of the 1990s and describes cyberfeminism as a child of its time, including the enthusiastic and largely techno-determinist approaches that promised a “female future” – a future that, 25 years later, yet has to arrive! For the contemporary discussion of the relationship between gender and technology Sollfrank, therefore, suggests the term "technofeminism". By presenting a selection of contemporary technofeminist practices, the limits of the 1990s cyberfeminism as well as the many unrealised imaginaries render visible. At the same time, the diverse practices from the fields of art and activism have expanded into new territories. Gender politics are negotiated with reference to technology, but also combined with questions of ecology and economy, thus responding to new forms of discrimination and exploitation. The different positions around this new techno-eco-feminism understand their practice as an invitation to take up their social and aesthetic interventions, to come to terms with them, to continue, not to give up.

The second part of the meeting will take form of an in-depth networking workshop the goal of which will be to share ideas and flesh out critical questions for further investigation and lay grounds for the network consolidation.

The first part of the lab meeting with contribution by C. Sollfrank is open to anyone but we kindly ask you to register to attend by emailing goda.klumbyte[at]uni-kassel[dot]de. If you wish to become part of the network and take part in the in-depth networking workshop after Sollfrank's talk, please apply by sending your biographical note and a brief statement of interest.

Inquiries can be addressed by email to goda.klumbyte[at]uni-kassel[dot]de. 

Further information are available as PDF.