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It is a well-known fact, although not properly acknowledged, that over the course of history women artists have been underrepresented in the art world, and in general have been undervalued and underpaid at auction houses, galleries, and museums. As the art historian Katy Hessel<\/strong>, author of the celebrated book The Story of Art Without Men, <\/em>points out: \u201cit\u2019s actually down to who has been able to tell the story of art history.\u201d Women artists have been routinely erased from art history, or included in relation to male artists, their talent minimized as they were portrayed merely as lovers or muses. In the art market, women artists have not fared better. Traditionally, art galleries have represented far more white men than any other group combined, and as recent reports indicate, the situation hasn\u2019t improved: the Burns-Halperin Report<\/strong><\/a> on equity and representation in US museums and the art market, presented in December 2022, indicates that auction sales of works by women artists represent only 3,3% of total sales worldwide, and that only 11% of acquisitions and 14,9% of exhibitions in US museums feature artworks created by women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The introduction of the digital arts and the emergence of the new media art scene have given women artists the opportunity to become early adopters both of photography and of alternate digital technologies such as VR as these novel mediums also allowed for political and artistic provocation of the accepted norms. Today in general there is also greater awareness towards this unequal tendency, and so different organizations focus on balancing out the different groups of artists which they represent. At Niio we have made it our mission to focus on presenting and promoting the works of women artists whether through the content distributed on our apps or in our editorial section. In 2022, the gender balance of our artist solo shows amounted to a total of close to 60% by women artists. This month, we are honored to showcase the artworks and art practices created by the women artists, and to present this brief survey among ten outstanding artists who have generously answered our questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you say that the digital art community behaves differently than the contemporary art world in terms of gender balance and visibility of women artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandra Crouwers: <\/strong>not really \u2013 although my personal field of view in the \u2018digital space\u2019 is taken up by a generally much, much more diverse constellation of artists than the \u2018traditional\u2019 contemporary art scene I\u2019m embedded in. Likely, the global accessibility and distribution of digital art plays a role. I do suspect museums and other art institutions working with digital media are, perhaps because of the reason above, a bit more aware of adding more women artists in exhibitions compared to the \u2018traditional\u2019 art world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandra Crouwers<\/a><\/strong> is an artistic researcher working in the digital realm, and oscillating between escapism and activism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Claudia Larcher: <\/strong>I don\u2019t have numbers for that, but no, I think that the visibility of women in the art world in general is still unbalanced, be it in the art world or digital art. More attention is now being paid to the issue, but the big solo shows are almost always given to the men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudia Hart: <\/strong>Yes, although strides have been made, I would have to say that the contemporary art world is still way out ahead of the digital space. The engine running digital is innovation culture. I would even go so far as to say that digital art culture functions more as beta testers for new products. It’s a culture of next new things, so it suffers from extreme ageism. The lowest ranked players in the digital art world are older women – not news not now, not glamorous. It’s a cute young world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe lowest ranked players in the digital art world are older women. It’s a cute young world.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Claudia Hart<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Dagmar Sch\u00fcrrer:<\/strong> Talking from my own perspective I feel that female identifying artists are quite present in the digital art community. I am based in Berlin, and I am very lucky to be surrounded by a network of strong women creating and researching in the digital art scene. Digital and new media is still kind of uncoupled from the classical art market and rather conceptually driven. It often tackles issues that are closely linked to female politics \u2013 like embodiment, social hierarchies, identity, or bias of new technologies. For example, the scene working with XR technologies is very experimental and constantly developing, and is open for fresh and unusual perspectives, which might be resonating with a female experience of a changing society. Nevertheless, it is a sad fact that women in the cultural sector are still outrageously underpaid. Statistics of the German K\u00fcnstlersozialkasse (artists’ social security fund) show that in 2022 female artists earned an average of 24% less than their male colleagues, the Gender Pay Gap is therefore significantly above the German national average! <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI feel that female identifying artists are quite present in the digital art community. Nevertheless, it is a sad fact that women in the cultural sector are still outrageously underpaid.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Dagmar Sch\u00fcrrer<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Tamiko Thiel:<\/strong> Until recently, fame in the media art world was driven more by academic voices and the few institutions that showed media art, because the art market was not interested in media art at all. This was primarily Ars Electronica due to its prestigious Golden Nica award, the ZKM because it was the primary institution with an archive and collection of media art, the festivals Transmediale and ISEA and the art gallery at SIGGRAPH.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was always my impression that these media art institutions however tended to focus very heavily on hardware technology, “boy toys” and a very male view of what is interesting in media art, rather than taking a wider view of the value of media art. I personally was told in a private conversation by a (male) member of the Ars jury, perhaps a decade after I had submitted my VR projection installation Beyond Manzanar (2000, with Zara Houshmand) to the Interactive Art category at Ars, that the others on the jury insisted it was not innovative because it only used a simple joystick as an input device. That is to say they focused exclusively on the hardware, without considering the complex interactive narrative of 13 scenes interweaving the historical Japanese American incarceration in WW2 and similar threats to intern Iranian Americans during the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979-1980, and how we had constructed an interactive structure in which the user’s agency led them to be complicit in their own incarceration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tamiko Thiel<\/a> <\/strong>is a pioneering visual artist exploring the interplay of place, space, the body and cultural identity in works encompassing interactive 3d virtual worlds (VR), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence art.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n In 2016 Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Addie Wagenknecht started the “Kiss My Ars” hashtag after noticing that in the 37 year history of Ars Electronica, 9 out of 10 Golden Nicas had been awarded to men, putting a hard number on my more vague impression of an unconscious gender bias in values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2012 the new director of the Transmediale, Kristoffer Gansing, shut me down when I responded to panelist Kathy Rae Huffman’s invitation to talk about my AR artwork during what was billed as “open conversation about video art and net culture, media collectives and counter-publics”. (See this webpage<\/a> for a detailed description and audio recording). This was all the more odd because the festival’s theme “in\/compatible” explicitly celebrated 25 years of art interventions and proclaimed in Gansing’s curatorial statement that: “Contrary to the fear of the incompatible, so prevalent in the age of cloud-computing, the festival raises the question of what happens when incompatibility is brought to the fore rather than hidden away in the dark underbelly of digital culture?” Kathy Rae and I of course asked ourselves, if a male curator on the panel had called on a male artist to describe their work, would Gansing have shut them down, as he did to us? It was painful for us as well that no one in the audience, not even the several famous feminist artists present, said anything at all during these encounters. Gansing had just taken over Berlin’s most prestigious media art venue, and I assume no one wanted to get on his bad side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn 2021 the art market became aware of digital art for the first time when Beeple sold a NFT for the equivalent of $69 million. The fact that this was roughly 35x the price of the highest selling work by a female artist, ixshells, speaks for itself.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Tamiko Thiel<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Chun Hua Catherine Dong:<\/strong> I think the digital art community and the contemporary art world are very similar in terms of gender balance. Gender imbalance exists within the digital art community, especially in technical and coding writing. Women also are underrepresented in the field of game development and software engineering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chun Hua Catherine Dong<\/a><\/strong>‘s artistic practice is based in performance art, photography, video, VR, AR, and 3D printing within the contemporary context of global feminism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Do you work with code-based art? If so, do you write the code, or work with collaborators? What is your experience with the community of coders and engineers?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sasha Stiles:<\/strong> I’m a lifelong poet who’s always been very interested in science and technology. Though I don’t have a computer science or coding background, I’ve been writing with AI-powered large language models since 2018, and have learned basic coding to fine-tune text generators and experiment with generative visual poetics. I’ve also had a hands-on role for many years now as poetry mentor to the AI android <\/strong>BINA48<\/strong><\/a>, <\/strong>built by Hanson Robotics and the Terasem Foundation. I’ve frequently been in the minority at meetings and conferences, but I’ve also found a lot of support for my work in places where I didn’t expect to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandra Crouwers:<\/strong> I AM A SUPERUSER! We\u2019re being overlooked, but that\u2019s another story: there\u2019s such a focus on code and generative abstraction at the moment, people forget most of us use those techniques too, but then as part of more encompassing works (this does not answer your question at all, haha).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marina Zurkow:<\/strong> I work with coders, usually as an equal collaboration (not with teams). In my intimate work world, at present, I have an even split between male and female identified technologist collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sasha Stiles<\/a><\/strong> a first-generation Kalmyk-American poet, artist and AI researcher widely recognized as a pioneer of generative literature and language art.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Claudia Larcher:<\/strong> I have limited skills in coding but try to do everything by myself, as I had some bad experiences with male coders. Which was also a kind of empowerment. Actually I don\u2019t know any female identifying coders, which is a pity. The coding community as I know it, is a male-only community. Hopefully it will change in the near future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe coding community as I know it, is a male-only community. Hopefully it will change in the near future.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Claudia Larcher<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Claudia Hart: <\/strong>I\u2019ve just produced my first Art Blocks. I was part of a group of women invited to develop a project. I went to a meeting for the newbies, and I was the only woman present, The rest were guy coders. I\u2019ve also collaborated with my friend Andrew Blanton, a cute young coder, because I can\u2019t do it for myself. Not sure I would ever do this again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudia Larcher<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s work explores video animation, collage, photography and installation with a cinematic approach to storytelling, extracting narratives from nondescript, everyday spaces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Dagmar Sch\u00fcrrer:<\/strong> I am working with XR technologies in my own artistic practice as well as a project assistant at the research group INKA<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>at the HTW Berlin \u2013 University of Applied Sciences. INKA is an interdisciplinary group of computer scientists and cultural workers like me, producing and teaching XR projects in the cultural field at the Institute for Culture and Computer Science. In the group there are slightly more female developers, but I would say that is rather unusual and a conscious decision to support women in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), which is of course great! This is not reflected in most of those degree programs, where women are significantly underrepresented, so there is still a lot to do to make these fields more attractive for women. This is also similar in the freelance sector; I have the impression that here female developers are very rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy VRML artworks are all code based, and I wrote all the code myself. I have had a lot of support and no problems from the community of coders and engineers.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Tamiko Thiel<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Tamiko Thiel: <\/strong>My VRML artworks (Beyond Manzanar, The Travels of Mariko Horo, Virtuelle Mauer\/ReConstructing the Wall<\/em>) are all code based, and I wrote all the code myself. I have had a lot of support and no problems from the community of coders and engineers in terms of gender inequalities. Since 2018 my husband, the software developer Peter Graf, collaborates with me on some but not all artworks. Since he is a professional coder, he can code much faster than I!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In your experience, has the NFT market benefited gender equality in any way? Do women artists get better chances at selling their work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexandra Crouwers: <\/strong>Not sure yet. Although in the very conservative contemporary art context I\u2019m geographically in, I\u2019d say I had at least a couple of disadvantages: being a women artist and working with digital media. It often felt the combination was just too much for people to handle. For me, the NFT space has connected my practice to a whole network of nodes of amazing fellow women artists, with similar experiences. On the other hand: I\u2019ve never sold so much work in my artist life before, so purely based on that I\u2019d say \u2018yes\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe NFT space has connected my practice to a whole network of nodes of amazing fellow women artists, with similar experiences.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>Alexandra Crouwers<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Snow Yunxue Fu<\/a> <\/strong>works with imaging technologies, such as 3D Simulation, AR, XR, and the Metaverse in interdisciplinary explorations into the universal aesthetic and definitive nature of the techno sublime.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Snow Yunxue Fu:<\/strong> I do think the NFT market has opened more opportunities for women artists and all artists in general, especially at the earlier stage of its developments and expansion. However, as the NFT market has a tendency to follow the historical art market, there are still many inequalities. It is quite important to have awareness for all parties involved and make efforts to give more support to women artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marina Zurkow:<\/strong> Among niche digital art worlds, perhaps – but not at the high-price & high-profile level. Those “spots” are consistently and disproportionately going to men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudia Larcher:<\/strong> I read that female artists are doing better in the NFT world than in the global art world but parity is still far away. I think that people see an investment when buying NFTs, and male artists still achieve higher re-sales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tamiko Thiel:<\/strong> The NFT market has a specific aesthetic that sells well, and I consider that aesthetic to be a very male gaze shaped by fantasy\/science fiction\/video games. Perhaps women artists who hide their gender do better, but as a woman artist who uses her real name, I think it helps me for intermediaries to call attention to my work and to tell potential collectors that my work is valuable. THANK YOU FOR HELPING! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chun Hua Catherine Dong:<\/strong> This is a good question. I don\u2019t get involved much at the NFT at this moment so I cannot tell whether the NFT market benefits more women artists. But the NFT market definitely is easier to enter while the traditional market requires years to build up one\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is your opinion about female-led NFT projects? Can you mention some projects that you find interesting?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sasha Stiles: <\/strong>I’m proud to be part of theVERSEverse<\/strong><\/a>, a women-led poetry gallery that seeks to empower writers by bringing poets into the art world. Co-founded by Kalen Iwamoto, Ana Maria Caballero and myself, with advisor Gisel Florez and community manager Elisabeth Sweet, theVERSEverse is trying to do something that has never really existed elsewhere, on or offline. I’m constantly astounded by the vision and tireless work ethic of women in web3 and adjacent spaces: Sofia Garcia, Jess Conaster, Micol Ap of Vertical Crypto Art, Danielle King, Diane Drubay, Valerie Whitacre, Ariel Hudes, Raina Mehler, Nicole Sales Giles, Lydia Chen, Mika Bar-On Nesher, Elena Zavalev, Eleanora Brizi, Fanny Lakoubay, to name just a few. I love the FEMGEN<\/strong><\/a> initiative from VCA and Right Click Save, and the Unsigned project by Operator and Anika Meier, and I’m represented by such women-owned galleries as Annka Kultys Gallery<\/strong><\/a> in London and Galerie Brigitte Schenk<\/strong><\/a> in Cologne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marina Zurkow<\/a> <\/strong>is a media artist focused on near-impossible nature and fostering intimate connections between humans, other species, and planetary agents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Marina Zurkow:<\/strong> Christiane Paul\u2019s curated exhibition Chain Reaction<\/em><\/strong><\/a> <\/em>on Feral File is a good example of highly rigorous, thoughtful NFT projects that are female-led or in collaboration. I think very highly of the works of Stephanie Dinkins<\/strong><\/a>, Amelia Winger-Bearskin<\/strong><\/a>, Sara Ludy<\/strong><\/a>, and the McCoys<\/strong><\/a> because their work has not only deep logic but they are concerned with what the blockchain can DO; it\u2019s not just another white wall in a white cube gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Claudia Larcher:<\/strong> I appreciate the work of the Austrian artist LIA<\/strong><\/a>, who is a pioneer of software and net art. I think that with producing NFTs she was really compensated for her artistic work in an appropriate monetary way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dagmar Sch\u00fcrrer:<\/strong> I want to mention the project Unsigned<\/strong><\/a> by Operator and Anika Meier. It is a collection of 100 signatures from women and non-binary artists to highlight the fact that a female signature on an artwork can devalue it. Turning the signatures themselves into artworks is a very clever and strong gesture, and I love the focused and minimal realization, both conceptually and aesthetically. It is positively simple, to the point and potentially iconic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tamiko Thiel:<\/strong> I find Auriea Harvey<\/strong><\/a>‘s and Nettrice Gaskin<\/strong><\/a>‘s work simply stunning, beautiful and meaningful. They create beautiful works of art like nothing I have ever seen before, and bring together incredible depths of art history and cultural history together from a very different viewpoint as the previous several thousands of years of art. All hail! I am delighted that ixshells<\/strong><\/a>‘ work is valued so highly, but such purely geometric abstractions are personally not so interesting for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Chun Hua Catherine Dong: <\/strong> I appreciate projects that are not made specifically for any kind of markets, but rather for the artists themselves or for the sake of art itself. Maybe these kinds of projects will have the potential to go both into the traditional and the NFT markets eventually, but the idea of \u201cart made for sale\u201d doesn\u2019t sound right for me. Artists such as Claudia Hart<\/strong><\/a>, Carla Gannis<\/strong><\/a>, and Frank Wang Yefeng<\/strong><\/a> are very interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1980\u2019s the feminist art movement began working mainly with photography and the newly available technological tools of the time. Do you feel that with the introduction of video art this even more so allowed artists to question older social models?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sasha Stiles: <\/strong>Both my practice and personal life are implicitly feminist in that I embody taboo concepts of womanhood, from engaging in male-dominated fields to eschewing many of the social and domestic expectations that are prescribed to women. So when a large language model fine-tuned on my own work, developed to write like me, expresses misogyny and disturbing stereotypes, for example, it’s powerful. Creative AI as a new medium demands that we go beyond questioning older social systems to infiltrating them, building ourselves into them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dkrxqpdgyal83.cloudfront.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/21111823\/Alexandra-Crouwers.jpg\")
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