Producing Futures – An Exhibition on Post-Cyber-Feminisms

In the group show Producing Futures—An Exhibition on Post-Cyber-Feminisms, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst surveys the causes championed by feminists in the post-internet era. The maturation of a number of technologies and the associated digitization of many or perhaps all domains of life have progressed to a point where a digitally engendered media universe arguably defines the compass of our reality and the meanings we find in it. The cyber-feminists of the 1990s hoped to harness the internet’s potential for communication and networking to establish cyberspace as a realm of liberation and self-empowerment; the time has come for a critical review of this optimism. The new freedoms opened up by the World Wide Web have gone hand in hand with the entrenchment of existing hierarchies and power structures. The exhibition revisits the cyber-feminist movement’s historic aspirations and visions, contrasts them with the contemporary situation, and inquires into ways in which its ideas may still be productive. The presentation accordingly undertakes a critical engagement with different feminist approaches that turn the spotlight on the tension between the body and technology and on discriminatory gender norms. For instance, the con-tributing artists reflect on and defamiliarize the offerings of various online platforms in order to further blur the boundaries between the virtual and real, the online and offline domains, as well the genders. Many of the works pursue a holistic approach, drawing on (medical) science, the occult, and other fields to stimulate a more comprehensive discussion and generate ideas for a livable future of emancipation, gender justice, and social equality.