Dear LiveJournal,

it's not you, it's me. You have been very good to me over the last couple of years, your easy going nature and focus on social networks gave me the courage to start blogging and helped me develop into the web savvy person I am today. Sure, I was disturbed when you started deleting peoples journals for posting fan fic, and enraged when you started censoring breast feeding mothers, but to be honest, although I would like to say that I am being morally conscious, this is not about that. It's just that I have been hanging out with wordpress and I have found that it is more suited to the way I want to use this journal.

good luck in the future, if you need me you can find me over at http://diaryofaresearchartist.wordpress.com.

love,
Bina_93

Earlier, here, I talked about idea gathering while flicking through a women’s magazine and mentioned that I would try the same thing with a magazine aimed at men. I went back to the same cafe and looked through their stack of magazines, I didn’t find any magazines aimed specifically at men, e.g. Men’s Health, or Ralph etc., so I used the one that seemed the most male oriented out to the selection, The Financial Review. I found this interesting in itself, as there was nothing inherently “male” about the magazine, it is really a gender neutral topic, yet the look and feel of the magazine – in particular the advertising – appeared to be aimed at men. I think this illustrates the way that ‘neutral’ in western culture actually means ‘male’. Male is the default, this is particularly obvious when you look at clothing that is perceived to be gender neutral, it generally male clothing that women are permitted to wear. Even more interestingly, as I pondered this concept and scanned the contents page I noted that the majority of staff and contributors to the magazine are female. It is nice to have your assumptions shattered once and a while.

( Like the last exercise this is just a stream of consciousness, random thoughts and ideas for further investigation and possible projects. )

I found that this time I wrote a lot more, with a greater number of high concept ideas, but overall with less clarity and less ideas that jumped out at me as must dos. The end result – I am left with a desire to be sculpted, in control, to be full of ideas and to have meetings and coffee. I feel like I want to record ideas on an ipod, to take notes and to make snap decisions. I want to work in a funky/minimalist/organic/retrofit/city central office.

It is all still about image, just a different one.

Via Boing Boing, Felix Jung has made a cute flash video thing that illustrates Dan Frick's song Astronaut by grabbing public photos from Flickr that are tagged with key words from the songs lyrics, cute!

I am finding that my procrastination streak is coming out at the moment, I am all set to start doing the creative project, I am feeling creative and I am feeling motivated (despite a small lapse in confidence that lasted for a week or so) and I am ready to go. All that is holding me up is a name. Such a small thing, yet so powerful, as someone who has been inclined to change their name by depoll I understand very well the power of a name, whether it is other people who judge you differently or you yourself, a different name can make for a different life. But do I really really need the bestest blog name in the world? No. It just needs to be good enough.

A short list of names I am considering:

• intimate and subversive (intimateandsubversive[dot]net): 'intimate and subversive' is how Sadie Plant describes women’s relationship with technology, I really like the sound of it and I think it describes the relationship very well, and since this project is about that relationship I think it fits really well.
  
• machine mother (machinemother[dot]net): this I like as well, it has a nice set of layered meanings (and as you know it is all about the layers for me :) ), giving birth to machines and being a machine, and it sounds kind of hard rock :P and suggests creative birth as well. On the cons side it does sound a little simplistic and pretentious.
  
• these days are numbered (thesedaysarenumbered[dot]net): as suggested by whooz_queen I love it, it is poetic and it is a lovely reference to both the timed nature of the project and also life itself. Cons, it is a little ominous and it scares me a little in terms of being confronted by my own mortality.
  
• fiftytwo (most variants are taken): 52 is a nice 'tell it like it is' name for a 52 week project. Cons, most variants of the name are taken so it makes both getting a domain harder and potential for misdirection greater. Also, it is maybe a little too generic.
  
• fifty two ways (fifty2ways[dot]net): fifty two ways to represent one’s self as a cyberfeminist online. The more I say it the more I like it. Cons, may be mistaken for this, maybe a bit too generic still.

any thoughts, comments, preferences or suggestions of other names please comment.

about time really :)

I am finding many blog based art projects* less accessible than I would like, which means a reduced likelihood that I will return to these sites. This has me thinking about the idea of art rationales, the explanations that you often see in a gallery on the wall next to a piece or in a catalogue, I often find that I enjoy reading the rationale as much and sometimes even more than the art itself. The extra information – what the artist was intending, other influences that surround the work etc. – definitely enhance my enjoyment of the work. Similarly if there is a tour going at the gallery I will always join and I really get a lot of value out of those audio guides galleries sometimes provide. However, I am wondering if it is fair to always expect artists to explain themselves, part of the reader process is figuring this all out and drawing your own conclusion. Many artists deliberately do not supply rationales or even titles for this very reason (Mark Rothko for example). Is expecting an explanation just lazy on my behalf? Maybe, but if I am someone who is actively interested in new media art and *I* am finding these sites inexplicable then the chances of the average internet user enjoying the work are pretty slim.

Now, I don’t expect you to explain your every idea in great detail, however, if you give me a hint or two, just a little background or explanation the likelihood I will be engaged and interested enough to take a closer look and form my own opinion is much greater. I think this is probably even important for internet artworks since when I go to a gallery I already have a set of expectations, I have a place of reference and a framework to start with. Most people who enter a gallery will get there through the front door. With internet art people arrive from many different directions and they are seeking and expecting many different things. Of course the fact that people are expecting a certain thing within the internet is a good opportunity to play with those perceptions, and to use those perceptions against the reader in a judo-esque manner, yet I think that opportunity is often lost as it is as easy to leave a site as it is to stumble across one.

*the blog-art blog is a really good reference for art blog links.

I spent this morning brainstorming for art ideas, I am definitely keen to invest some more time into practice right now. I jotted down ideas as they came to me, and then jotted down some more as I sat in a cafe flicking through a ‘Marie Claire’ magazine that I picked up of the cafe shelf. Of course the magazine was really just a catalyst for jotting down ideas that have been floating around in my head for a while, an extraction tool of sorts, yet I am thinking about repeating this process on Friday morning, but instead of looking through ‘Marie Claire’ selecting a magazine that is aimed at men instead and see if/how the themes that strike me differ.

( Some thoughts and themes )

This morning was spent reading Conelia Sollfrank’s Cyberfeminism: Revolution; Tactical use of terms a presentation given in 2002; and the almost identical The final truth about cyberfeminism, and then having a general look around the OBN Reading Room. I will write a more comprehensive review and post to No Una Banana, but some quick notes that struck a chord with me:

• Sollfrank mentions Sadie Plant’s description of women’s relationship to technology as "intimate and subversive" – I really like this idea. I may have to give Plant’s ‘zeros and ones’ another look now I have a bit more time.
  
• DIY is an essential part of cyberfeminism – "The idea of taking the term Cyberfeminism and filling it with one's own vision instead of complaining about what predecessors had done wrong, was central. Cyberfeminism as something you cannot learn, you cannot read, you cannot understand, but that you invent and do yourself, brought back agency to many women/feminists who had felt they had arrived at a dead end." – this is something I need to remember when defining my methodology, I will need to make it explicitly clear that I am not defining ‘the’ cyberfeminist methodology, but rather ‘a’ cyberfeminist methodology. This is not a particularly shocking revelation for me, it is part of what attracted me to cyberfeminism in the first place, and I documented that in the candidacy proposal, but it is always good to have a reminder.
  
• Sollfrank also talks about the essential nature of networking to a cyberfeminist practice. Again not a new concept for me now, but a good reminder. This is definitely my weakest point as a cyberfeminist and is something I need to actively work on.
  
  
  
  I have decided to start a mini project on No Unna Banana with ‘100 days of anti-theses’ in which I post the 100 anti-theses with a short discussion on each one, mostly for my own amusement :)

I have spent most of this morning (and a good deal of last night) hunting for potential conferences to attend and other related artistic opportunities. This sounded like an easy task, but proved to be more difficult than I had thought it would. I think the problem was one of not knowing the exact language to describe what I was looking for - this is a problem I am finding more and more frequently as I expand my areas of interest, there is much information out there, but unless you have the right map or phrase book it can be really really hard to find. I found some useful info at the Curtin uni library site, but still having limited success in tracking down conferences that relate to my particular field.

I have also been doing so more thinking on my last post about using 'a cyberfeminist approach'. There is an opportunity here for me to develop a cyberfeminist methodology as one of my objectives, a major objective in fact. It is what I have been doing anyway, but saying it like that makes it much more organised and focussed.

(x posted to No Una Banana)

When I talk about my thesis I often say I am taking a cyberfeminist approach to Web 2.0, and I think this is most often misunderstood. While this does mean looking at the web through a feminist lens, it also means much more than that.

So here is a brief description of what a cyberfeminist approach means to me.

Step 1: Know your product.
Ask the big questions – what is it? who says so? Who uses it? who doesn’t? why? what is different about it? Why is it special? What is not so great? To whom does it give a voice? Whom does it silence? What privilege is inherent in the medium?

Step 2: Engage
After all "cyberfeminism is not using words without any knowledge of numbers" so it is crucial to a cyberfeminist approach to not only be familiar with the theory, but to get in there and use the technology.

Step 3: Hack
While the term hacker (in the media at least) usually refers to an elite and mischievous computer programmer, I use the term in a broader sense as a person who, when not content with a system or a process, will actively seek to change and redefine said system. To me hacking means taking everyday things and changing them so they work for you. Cornelia Sollfrank gives a good definition of this in her lecture women hackers as “One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations… to generalise, one could say that hacking is all about learning and free inquiry”. I am also fond of Jon Ippolito’s description of techno art as "Creative misuse of technology".

Step 4: Play
Play is an important part of a cyberfeminist approach because "cyberfeminism is not boring!" The playful use of both irony and art have been inextricable from cyberfeminist theory since its very inception.

Step 5: Share
"Cyberfeminism is not a single woman", not is it "without connectivity". Communication, networking and collaboration are key cyberfeminist principles.

So in a nutshell what I mean by taking a cyberfeminist approach is to fully engage with the web in both theory and practice, creatively misusing it in a deliberate and playful fashion, while all the while collaborating, communicating and sharing the experience.

Thanks to callistra for the prompt that helped me write out a short description of the blog project, a statement of intent of sorts:
"The yearlong project is a way of exploring the potential of web 2.0 as a cyberfeminist art resource. Each week I will look in depth at an aspect of women’s representation on the Internet and I will create an artwork based on that research. My primary medium is layered digital art (i.e. images created using digital photography and Photoshop manipulation) and this will feature heavily in my weekly art works. However, to use the medium to its full potential I will also be utilising other forms of artistic expression such as video, audio, and the creation of browser based Internet art. It is important to me as a cyberfeminist artist that this work be not just theory, but also active and playful at the same time. There is an intentional multiplicity to the project for a few reasons, both to use the strengths of the world wide web (a web as it is) and to give space to the many varied ways of representing ones self as a woman online, I believe a diversity of representations is crucial to the dismantling of gender stereotypes."
***

we also had a very revealing and amusing msn exchange:
Bina: it is a pretty simple project really… which is good but it does worry me that it is too simple and therefore what is the point
Calli: how can simple be bad? you'll be showing the complexities of so called simplicity
Bina: I guess there is a tendency to think of 'simple' as 'unsophisticated' and therefore lesser in value, but really the point of communication is to convey ideas clearly
Calli: ha
Calli: where did the person go in that sentence, I wonder
Bina: lol, one does not like to identify ones self with such thinking ;)
Bina: so yeah, I guess what I am actually saying is that I sometimes feel insecure and like a fraud at this uni stuff :)
Bina: and I feel like people are going to say "you got a dr8 for that?"
Bina: or worse "we are not going to give you a dr8 for that!"
Calli: I think by the time it's over, you will be able to laugh that off


And also we talked about our children’s poo, but that may be a topic for a different journal.

Following on from my earlier post today I found this web 2.0 company name generator, via web zen.

I'm kinda liking 'minoodle' :)

I have posted a few notes and thoughts about Gregg’s ‘Posting with Passion’ over at No Unna Banana, please feel free to jump over, read and discuss.

I am ready to jump right in any moment now and start the one-year blog/art project. I will be creating a new blog for the project where I will create and post a new digital art work on a weekly basis, and spend a week discussing and reflecting on that theme. I will keep this blog active as a reflective journal, where I consider the process as it evolves and use it as a space for brainstorming and idea gathering before putting the ideas into practice. I guess this is a kind of behind the scenes journal, my electronic moleskine notebook :)

Before taking the plunge I am taking a bit of time out to consider what to call the blog. A few early front runners were ‘The 100 pixel goddess’ which is a reference to standard live journal icons being 100 x 100 pixels in size, and also ‘404 – girl not found’ which is a reference to the 404 error that you get when something is missing from the internet. I have been leaning towards the second title although I think it is such a great title I can’t believe no one has used it already, I did a few google searches for it and came up with nothing, yet it still sounds familiar. While I do like the first title I find the use of goddess problematic because it sets up that binary that I am working to get away from here, perhaps “the 1000 pixel cyborg” is better – as Haraway said “I’d rather be a cyborg than a goddess”. I suspect that I will end up choosing something completely different – suggestions welcome.

Baby_B is now in daycare from 8-12 Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays, which means that this has become my non negotiable research/uni time. I am thrilled to be able to work solidly for those few hours and not have to rely on nap times, night times, or have my mind dealt out in many directions as I try and work. The old plan was really not working for me, nor was it very good for Baby_B, who got part of my attention *all* the time rather than *all* of my attention part of the time.

Today I:

• Reacquainted myself with my proposal to remind myself exactly what it is I promised I would do for this project
  
• Posted to No Una Banana, our emerging cyberfeminist group blog (for which there is an lj feed for those interested)
  
• Made my first contribution to Wikipedia updating the stub entry on cyberfeminism (which I basically adapted from my candidacy summary background)
  
• Revisited the article Posting With Passion: Blogs and the Politics of Gender by Melissa Greg.(which I just noticed has a UQ url, hmmm... perhaps some potential for networking there)
  

No Una Banana is the first time I have used blogger, until now I have been a one eyed lj fan, but I wanted to branch out and see the other side. I am finding it a little tricky as I don't yet know the language and I am finding it hard to reference their help pages without knowing the specific names of the things I want help with. For example, is there a blogger equivalent to an lj-cut?

Playing in wikipedia was scary at first, I feel quite intimidated sometimes when I think that anything I write on my blog or elsewhere on the internet is published for anyone to see, but I am feeling quite bold today - perhaps having several hour in a row to work has gone to my head.

Candidacy passed!

This is an updated, cleaned-up version of the methods section. It really helps to take a break and look over your work with fresh eyes sometimes :)

It is very similar to the last version in terms of concept, just a bit cleaner ans slightly more detailed, so I have put it behind a ( cut to save repetition. )

Here is the latest draft of the research methods section, with an attempt to directly relate everything I plan to do to the objectives.

Research Method

The research will take place in two parts, as practice based research art and exegetically.

Analyse the ways gender is thought to impact on (self)representation online.
In the first frenzy of publicly accessible Internet that identity would be fluid and transferable, that gender switching was and would remain common, and that this was a new utopia in which we could all throw away the shackles of worldly gender. This does not seem to be the case. The exegesis will document the kinds of political, cultural and technological influences that impact on resulting online representations. I will explore the ways in which real world gender impacts on ones online identity – from accessibility to digital harassment, and also the way online gender influences readings. To analyse the ways gender is thought to impact on (self)representation online I will conduct a contextual review of feminist approaches to self and identity online, with particular focus on web 2.0. Because this is a continually expanding area both in terms of theory and technology the contextual review will need to be ongoing throughout the duration of the research program.

This objective will also be answered through my practical work, through a blog based art project in which I will examine the ways gender is thought to impact on self representation through a series of art digital images created using digital photography, Photoshop manipulation and animation, with source material gathered from a mixture of Web 2.0 resources and my personal photography. Each week for one year I will explore an aspect of virtual gender through these digital images, which will be uploaded to a blog dedicated to this project. Each week I will explore a different sub-topic relating to the representation of women on the Internet, for example: the perception of women online being primarily concerned with domesticity [22]; the Internet as a virgin frontier; and the perception of Web 2.0 as a male dominated media. Using open source Web 2.0 blog software the digital images will be posted to a blog dedicated to this project, where the images will be used to stimulate discussion about the chosen topic. The images will be offered to others to use as icons under a Creative Commons licence, which allows others to use the work freely for non commercial uses as long as attribution is given to the original artist[31]. At the end of the exhibition year I will have amassed a collection of 52 digital images that explore notions of gender online.

Examine current graphical representations/self representations of women within Web 2.0 Internet technologies from a feminist perspective.
Through the ongoing contextual review I will examine current graphical representations of women within Web 2.0 from a feminist perspective. I will examine the way women are presented on the internet by themselves and others in order to discern any common themes. Using a cyberfeminist theoretical framework I will examine user generated images within Web 2.0, concentrating on those representing women, but will also inspect those representing men in order to ascertain if there are significant differences between the two.

This exegetical analysis will inform the artwork in which new representations will be created as a response to currently available representations.

Investigate the potential for alternative visual representations of the female on Web 2.0.
From the information gathered from the first two objectives I will investigate the potential for alternative visual representations of the female on Web 2.0. Once it has been established through the contextual review what the dominant representations of women currently look like I will be able to determine what possible alternatives are required. I will put forward ideas for possible new representations and discuss them in the exegesis.

I will use this understanding to inform my art practice in which I will explore (self)representation and endeavour to create alternative, cyberfeminist representations of women for use on web 2.0. Each week I will explore an aspect of virtual gender representation. Through the dedicated project blog I will put forward new ideas for representation in the form of digital images. I will then gather feedback about these images via comments form blog participants and use these to gauge the effectiveness of these proposed representations.

Every week for 1 year, I will create a new original digital artwork that satisfies the cyberfeminist objective to create new feminist sympathetic representations of women on the Internet [7]. Conducting the project over a year allows for the creation of 52 unique artworks. It is important to the project to allow for many different images, as there are many legitimate ways to graphically represent women in a feminist light. In fact, a diversity of representations is crucial to the dismantling of gender stereotypes.

Analyse the impact of web2.0 technologies and culture on cyberfeminist art.
Through the contextual review I will look at the work of other cyberfeminist artists and assess if/how the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has influenced their art practice.
Through feedback and personal reflection on the project I will discuss the ways in which Web 2.0 provides either more or less fertile ground for cyberfeminist art practice.

Through the art practice itself I will be able to explore the impact of Web 2.0 technologies. Conducting the work as a time-based project uses the Web 2.0 format at its full potential, making the most of the chronologically based blog format. In terms of art practice working within a time-based structure will allow for real-time peer feedback that may be reviewed and incorporated as the project progresses, thus making use of Web 2.0s networking capabilities.

Reflective Journal
Throughout the process I will be keeping a reflective journal that documents the artistic process. Recorded in the journal will be ideas as they arise, problems and challenges, links to and discussion of new developments and research in the area, and any other thoughts and questions relevant to my research[32]. The reflective journal will enable me to document the process and to aid the reflective work required for practice based research[33]. This journal will be submitted to the examiners as an appendix to assist them in contextualising the practical work.

Undeterred by a recent episode of computer crashery I persevere in a mildly caffeinated frenzy. Thanks everyone for your comments and questions, they really help a lot. Here is how the objectives are looking:

Objectives
The central question driving my research is ‘how can cyberfeminism practice and Web 2.0 applications be used to recode gendered representations of women on the Internet?’ To answer this question I will be carrying out practice based research within a framework of cyberfeminist art and theory, looking at graphical representation and self-representation of women within Web 2.0. The objectives of the research are to:

1. Analyse the ways gender is thought to impact on (self)representation online.
   
2. Examine current graphical representations/self representations of women within Web 2.0 Internet technologies from a feminist perspective.
   
3. Investigate the potential for alternative visual representations of the female on Web 2.0.
   
4. Analyse the impact of web2.0 technologies and culture on cyberfeminist art.
   

***

And here is how the section on ethics is going:

Ethical Issues
I will be applying for a ‘Form A’ ethical clearance. Although there is little to no risk of physical or emotional harm likely to be caused by this research program Web 2.0 and the Internet are evolving technologies and therefore there are some ethical issues that remain unclear. As a researcher in these areas it is therefore important to be mindful and cautious of these ethical areas. The most important ethical problem for working within Web 2.0, and particularly for a practical project, is that of unclear intellectual property. For example while a blog owner retains copyright over all the posts and entries created by herself, comments of others remain their own and are not necessarily the property of the owner of the blog (or other space) in which they have been written. While there is assumed consent for these comments to be published on the blog where they are contributed, there is no implied permission for these comments to be used in any other context. Within this project I will need to be very clear to those who may participate by way of comments how their contributions may be used (for example in the exegesis or in art works).

A second area of ethical consideration is the un-moderated nature of the Internet. While this project is not aimed at minors or other groups at risk it is impossible for me to restrict access to any such groups. Because of this consideration it is important that the content of the online component of this research program be legal and suitable for all ages.

***
Thanks to Strangedave for sending me in the right direction for the ethics.

I am currently working on the methods, which has been the most confusing part for me, however, with the objectives sorted out and some very helpful suggestions from SuperH, they seem to be moving along steadily.

Getting better I think. Although sometimes I can't tell if I am getting better or worse :) Ah well, it always seems to get there in the end.

***
The central question driving my research is ‘how can cyberfeminism practice and Web 2.0 applications be used to recode gender biases on the Internet?’ To answer this question I will be carrying out practice based research within a framework of cyberfeminist art and theory, looking at graphical representation and self-representation of women within Web 2.0. The objectives of the research are to:

1. Examine current gender biases on the Internet particularly with regards to Web 2.0.
   
2. Survey current graphical representations/self representations of women within Web 2.0 Internet technologies.
   
3. Explore the potential for alternative visual representations of the female on Web 2.0.
   
4. Determine if/what new opportunities exist within Web 2.0 for cyberfeminist artists.

***