COTTON, Michelle (ed.)
Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960-1991

Published in conjunction with an eponymous exhibition surveying the history of digital art from a feminist perspective, Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960-1991 focuses on women who worked with computers as a tool or subject, and artists who worked in an inherently computational way!

Radical Software spans a period from the first years of integrated circuit computing in the 1960s to the “microcomputer revolution,” which led to the birth of home computing in the 1980s: during these three decades – preceding the rise of the World Wide Web – the computer migrated from the laboratory to private, domestic space. This same period is also referred to as the second wave of feminism, an era that popularised an (albeit incomplete) idea of gender equality.

This extensive publication includes new essays by Tina Rivers Ryan, Margit Rosen, and the exhibition’s curator, Michelle Cotton. It also features a richly illustrated timeline covering the period between 1613 and 1991 and includes twenty-seven new interviews with artists and over 200 illustrations.

Contributors: Laura Amann, Sarah Beaumont, Michelle Cotton, Rhea Dall, Ramona Heinlein, Hannah Marynissen, Astrid Peterle, Carlotta Pierleoni, Andrea Popelka,Clémentine Proby, Tina Rivers Ryan, Margit Rosen, Jade Saber, Bettina Steinbrügge.

Artists include Rebecca Allen, Elena Asins, Gretchen Bender, Gudrun Bielz & Ruth Schnell, Dara Birnbaum, IAnalívia Cordeiro, Betty Danon, Hanne Darboven, Bia Davou, Anna Bella Geiger, Isa Genzken, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Lily Greenham, Samia Halaby, Barbara Hammer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Grace C. Hertlein, Channa Horwitz, Irma Hünerfauth, Charlotte Johannesson, Alison Knowles, Beryl Korot, Katalin Ladik, Ruth Leavitt, Liliane Lijn, Vera Molnár, Monique Nahas & Hervé Huitric, Sylvia Roubaud, Miriam Schapiro, Lillian Schwartz, Sonia Sheridan, Nina Sobell, Barbara T. Smith, Tamiko Thiel, Rosemarie Trockel, Joan Truckenbrod, Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven, Ulla Wiggen .. and others.

Published by MUDAM / Kunsthalle Wien / Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2024
Design by A Practice for Everyday Life
Exhibition Catalogues / Media Studies / Digital / Feminism