Shigeko Kubota, Berlin Diary Thanks to My Ancestors, 1981, 23 x 20.2 x 11 cm, © Galerie Hubert Winter Wien, © ADAGP, Paris
This multi-year programme aims to create resources on women artists in the field of new media, with an international approach and a particular focus on Japan. It introduces artists who have practised and engaged with video art, algorithms, digital worlds and technological developments from the 1960s to the 1990s.
The artists’ biographies will be shared on the AWARE website, thereby emphasising the presence of women in these fields, reconstituting genealogies and linking them to current cyberfeminist reflections. Taking societal conditions into account, the programme examines the appropriation or incorporation of technological developments by women artists, as suggested by the title in which references Shigeko Kubota’s statement: “Videotape acts as an extension of the brain’s memory cells. Therefore, life with video is like living with two brains, one plastic brain and one organic brain.”1
The project continues in this aim with an event in Japan in 2025 as well as through the publication of research articles. The advisory committee supports AWARE in the selection of research themes, artists and authors.
1 Kubota, “Video Sculpture: Two Phases,” in Zdenek Felix (ed.), Shigeko Kubota: Video Sculptures, exh. cat. (Berlin: Daadgalerie; Essen: Museum Folkwang; Zürich: Kunsthaus Zürich, 1981).
Curatorial Associate, Media Department, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
Director, Associação Cultural Videobrasil
Curator and Professor at Ecole nationale supérieure d’arts de Lyon (ENSBA Lyon)
Director, Mori Art Museum
Curator, Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe (ZKM)
Assistant Director of International Program, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)
Curator and Art Critic
Curator, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA)