The vagina is the boss on internet

New media female artists inspired by erotics, identity and social
interaction

Surfing on the internet I find the 'Virtual Themepark' from the most
interesting cyberfeminist artist group VNS Matrix. It all sounds very
promising and as a hetero woman I click on the Viral Pleasureworld. I am
dissappointed, because I do not find any beautiful naked men on the
screen, but a universe with purple planets and the text 'Viral Pleasure
World'. As soon as I want to continue I always come back on the first
page. Only at "The end of the World" I finally get to the "Filthy
Genderworld" where I see a group of tiny little people who are licking
eachother. Furtheron I step on Gashgirl's homepage, who's real name is
Francesca da Rimini. This is one of the ladies from VNS Matrix. On this
page I finally find some more 'information' about their work:
wordmixture of textfragments from SM-stories, filmtitles and
computerterminology that are connected to eachother. The title above
this page says enough: "GenderFuckMebacy's palace of Unparalleled
Cynicism", oldfashioned artistic enigmas that are larded with sensual
quotes, to which's meaning you can quest for hours and hours being an
outsider

Cyberslut

VNS (VeNuS) Matrix wants to create confusion. The four Australian ladies
want to make chaos in the standards and values from today's society,
because they do not agree with the woman's status within. They make
electronic art that questions the computer mass culture and her products
in a playfull but brutal feministic way. VNS matrix acts on a humorous
way against men's women-unfriendly and sexistic outbursts on the
internet. These cyberfeminists are not afraid to use any means to
achieve their aim. So they are not agianst sex, porno or even against
men. They think that it is only just about time that women take control
on the internet from men, because men behave badly. Still too many women
suffer from obscene remarks.

The Corpus FantasticaMOO, an internet game, illustrates clearly how
obscene creeps should be punished. VNS Matrix, virtually pierced,
masked, harnesed and weaponed with the most horrible torturestuff,
enters dark internetsurroundings by psuedonyms like Psybapussy and
Cyberslut. There they terrorize everything male as soon as it logs in in
this Tartaros-like domain. Someone who entered as Quentin Tarrantino,
for example, was almost sent to the virtual heaven by Psybapussy's
dangerous C46-weapon. The girls are the boss and their feminity is
sacred. The core of their realm, the Matrix, can only be reached by the
virtual clitoris. The vagina is the symbol of the female power. In their
"Bitch Mo Manifesto" the ladies swank about making art with their cunt.
Their pussy is also capable of fighting against "Big daddy mainframe".
"Big Daddy Mainframe" is the symbol of the male society, that is still
dominating both the real and the virtual world. The "Mainframe" is also
a widespread product of computertycoon IBM.

The art of these cybervamps is at it's most beautiful in their fantastic
projects, that are based on internet- and CD-rom games like Quest and
Doom. In 1995 they made in cooperation with the artist Leon Cmielewski
an project named "The user unfriendly interface", where as many as
possible people should be insulted. On these beautiful pages it was not
allowed to click anything. When someone was naughty and clicked anyway,
the computer yelled angry at this person and the buttons changed into
insects that walked away from the screen. People also had to fill in
their dreams and desires, so that the program could curse and jeer at
them. This program was not meant to be an attack to the male society,
but to the dominating commercials and the standard mass products, that
always have to be userfriendly.

The game of communication

VNS Matrix is also trying to investigate in what way the game is a
symbol of social interaction in cultural life. Is pleasure an important
condition to experience art? Interactivity gives one the power to
interfere in a work of art. The non feminist artist Agnes Hegedus sees
the new media as an interesting territorium for investigation in the
field of social interaction. In the new media raises a new culture of
games, that is both interactive and telematic. She thinks it is special
that everyone can pick a different identity. The result is that
communication via internet is more playful than in real life. The
internet is a game of seduction. Not the seduction of being connected on
a distance is addicting, but the mysterious rendez-vouses of people
gives a sexy kick. On internet people can meet eachoter without being
seen, they can pretend to be anyone in any way.

Hegedus' "Televirtual Fruitmachine" from 1994 is based on this playful
interactive aspect. De instalation is a big screen on which three puzzle
pieces of a fruit machine are projected. In front of the screen are
three tables with a joystick. Three different people can join into this
game at the same time. The fruit is refering to the forbidden fruit from
Paradise and seduction. In contrast with VNS Matrix, who wants to see
the new digital world dominated by women, Hegedus does not think that is
necessary. When the man and woman identity can be swapped in the virtual
space, the genderidentity will be less important. The idea of genderswap
with the help of the media was allready being issued by Marcel Duchamp,
who let himself been photographed as Rrose Selavy (Eros c'est la vie):
travesty as sexual pleasure.

Metamorphosis

The body will be less relevant accoring to the Australian artist Jill
Scott: by means of technique we will be nomads in both the body and the
soul. She thinks technique is very fascinating and she illustrates that
very brilliantly in her gorgeous interactive film-installation
"Frontiers of Utopia" from 1995. The ill Zira does not live in the real
world: everything she does is via the computer: working communicating
and living, for this is the only way to forget that her body is soon
going to die. In this installation the visitors can "setup a dialogue"
with women who are in this film. These women come from different areas
of the 20th century and tell things about their ideal society. Emma from
1900 hopes for freedom for public opinion, Pearl from 1930 is dreaming
of equality of race, Gillian from 1960 thinks of technical advance in
socialist society and Zira from the 90ties believes that the technique
can solve all problems.

Thanks to technique the body can be improved. This theme is very popular
among feminist artists. Even when a woman is not ill, her body needs to
be improved by technique. The dutch artist Inez van Lamsweerde is
hackling artificial bodily changes from healthy females, by making
beautiful ridiculous computerpictures on which she used photomodels and
window-figures. The female figures on her photo's have something unreal:
in the series "Thank you Tighmaster" from the early nineties Van
Lamsweerde stuck doll's eyes on a woman's face. She thinks too many
woman cannot be themselves anymore, but have to look like Barbie.

[…]

Vagina Dentata

On the Bitter Herb Menu one can find the bitter herb "cleavers", which
lets a vagina eat a penis. The principle of the Vagina Dentata, the
mighty and male-swallowing vagina is to be found in different cultures.
Because men are afraid of this Vagina Dentata, women are being
circumcised, so that they cannot urinate in a normal way or enjoy sex.
The liberation of women is to take revenge of them by castration, says
the Bitter Herb website. The herb that is punishing men so severely is
called Heartsease. The Vagina Dentata is a beloved subject among
cyberfeminist artist, because it is the ultimate symbol of destroying
male power. Women can be in charge then. The Bitter Herb menu sees the
Vagina Dentata in a mystique and occult context. But VNS Matrix sees the
vagina Dentata in a playful way as a vampire like tart, who is called
Dentata. Dentata has to shoot men in the 'Cybersquat', a virtual game
surroundings from VNS Matrix.

Interactive rituals in the Bitter Herb Menu, that are made by the
visitors, contribute to the destruction of the myth of women being evil
and calm the phobias of men. Sat and Rapoport think that in this way
they are contributing to the development of the World Wide Web as a new
artistic technological medium, that is free from sexual prejudices and
differences, so that the reputation of women can be purified.

Common ground

The internet is a free space and that is why women can take advantage of
that. Sonya Rapoport sees the web as free and easy to give a
presentation from feministic art. She hopes to reach also people who
would otherwise never go to an exhibition. She is striving to a kind of
common ground: a virtual space linked to different female artists. The
dutch artist Mathilde Mupe has allready made links on her homepage to
different feminists in cyberspace. The german video artist Ulrike
Rosenbach and the american art critic Lucy Lippard have allready set up
feministic art institutes in the seventies where female artists could
cooperate.

Much female artists see the internet as a possibility to communicate in
a role playing game, where people can change their gender. Some feminist
artists want to gain power over men on the inernet. For them the game of
sexuality is a form of power instead of romance. The sexual organ is not
only capable of enjoying sex, but also of urinating, multiplying and
dividing the human race into the suppressed and the dominating species.
These feminist artists see the internet as an opportunity to be the boss
on internet. They do not want to lose their gender, but they want to
gain dominance over the male in their female glory. The gender identity
should therefore be emphasized according to them. The question is
whether this is still relevant in an age of androgyny and
transsexuality, because the body can also be changed in today's society.