[continued from part 1]

me knowing what it is. Later when I realized that I asked Geert again
what it meant and if he could send me a few references.

FC: [Laughter.]

CS: But there was not much available in 1995/96. He sent me sure enough
a reference from Sadie Plant and VNS Matrix - and 'Innen', which was a
female artist group which I was involved in myself. He sent me back
quasi my own context as a reference. That was a real little surprise.
That he had done this was definitely no coincidence. So I thought to
myself, OK, I assume he knows [laughter] which references he sent to me.
I kept mulling over that in my mind. Then came the invitation to 'Hybrid
Workshop' at the documenta x. Once again Geert was involved. He wanted
me to plan a week or block - not on Cyberfeminism, but rather on one or
other female/feminist issue. And this invitation was the catalyst for me
to start working on the term 'Cyberfeminism'. By then I had found real
pleasure in it and discovered that there was an enormous potential
involved and which both Sadie Plant and VNS Matrix had not capitalized
on. They had only dabbled in a few areas.

What is interesting in Cyberfeminism is that the term is a direct
reference to feminism, and therefore has a clearly political notion. On
the other hand though, due to this disastrous prefix, which sure enough
is a real burden and very loaded, it also shows that there is something
else there, an additional new dimension. That this 'cyber' is present
does not mean that much - apart from the fact that in all this hype it
worked quite well. Taking a pre-fix that has popped up out of a good
deal of hype, and what's more using it and attaching it to something
else, creates a real power. Especially when everyone cries out (apart
from you of course), Oh my God - feminism! It was this potential not to
begin again from scratch with feminism, but to find a new point of
departure - as well as the motivation to get people to begin engaging
again with this term. Theoretically we could have made an attempt to
redefine feminism. But it's history is simply too prominent and the
negative image too powerful.

FC: The difficulty I have with this no doubt stems from an academic
point of view. We are in the midst of a discussion about net culture,
which includes mailing lists like Nettime and other forums, where one no
longer has to discuss the absurdity of 'cyber' terminology. That's been
done. Then along comes something that one knows is not to be taken
completely seriously. However when I set foot in academic circles, I
found myself being criticized - like I was at the Annual German Studies
Convention - for debunking dispositively the terms
'cyber'/'hyper'/'virtuel' which are still used there as discursive
coordinates. These terms have gathered their own dynamic and have been
written down and canonized for at least the next ten years. And it is
precisely here that 'cyberfeminism' fits in, as a term which does not
sound so experimental or ironic when one puts it into the context of
something like Cultural Studies.

CS: But what do you mean? Is that actually a problem?

FC: Well, isn't it the problem that one thereby creates a discourse
which in academia can gather its own dynamic and then no longer…?

CS: …in that case, yes. I fully support you there.

FC: Another problem: what always becomes very apparent in the context
of Feminism when one reviews its history from the Sufragettes to
Beauvoir to the difference feminism of the seventies right up to Gender
Studies is that 'Feminism' as such does not actually exist.

CS: No, that's obvious.

FC: There's an anthology of American feminist theory, which sensibly
uses the title 'Feminisms' - uses the plural. Shouldn't it also be
called 'Cyberfeminisms'?

CS: It's been called that often. For example in the editorial of the
second OBN (Old Boys Network) reader it's referred to as 'new
Cyberfeminism' and then 'Cyberfeminisms'. Or in a definition by Yvonne
Volkart: "Cyberfeminism is a myth and in a myth the truth, or that,
which it engages resides in the difference between the individual
narratives." I think that is one of the really good definitions of
Cyberfeminism.

FC: You initiated the cyberfeminist alliance 'Old Boys Network', whose
Internet Domain is registered in your name. Organized by OBN the
'Cyberfeminist International' had its first gathering at the documenta
x. Is the impression I have right that the group or the discourse
consists mainly of women who are active in net art culture?

CS: No, that's not right. We did have our first big gathering at
documenta x, but especially this documenta, namely the hybrid workspace
where we were located, brought different contexts together. Not only the
art world, but also the media and activist scene for example.

In the 'Old Boys Network' we have always experimented with different
organisational forms. The ideal form does not exist. One has to somehow
organize a network, because it doesn't exist by itself. Finally however
there was no form that functioned really well, which means we always
have to conceive of new forms. For a while we had what could be
identified as a 'core group' of five to six names. From those less than
half were artists. There has always been a predominance of theorists,
from the literary experts to the art historians…

FC: That means theorists who situate themselves in the context of art,
and it reeks as ever of net art.

CS: For me personally that's correct. But there are many people in OBN
who would refuse to see it that way. Our goal was always manifold. Our
main idea was not to formulate a content with a concrete political goal.
Instead we considered our organizational structure as a political
expression. To be a cyberfeminist also makes demands on us to work on
the level of structures and not just to turn up at conferences and hold
a seminar paper. On the contrary, it means to tend to financial
matters, or to make a website, a publication or create an event - hence
to engage in developing structures. And 'Politics of dissent' is a very
important term. It means placing the varied approaches next to each
other, finding a form so that they can coexist and act as a force field
to set something going. That's why we tried to incorporate women from
the CCC - female hackers - as well as female computer experts. Fourteen
days ago at the third 'Cyberfeminist International', for the first time
there were several women from Asia, as well as women from 'Indymedia'
[The anit-globalisation news network]. It is very important to keep
extending the connections.

FC: I find it very interesting that you focus on structures when I ask
you about the term Cyberfeminism. Is it then just another platform,
another system that you have programmed generatively as an experiment to
see what will happen?

CS: That's pretty extreme, but yes one could say that. When I was asked
to define Cyberfeminism, what was always important for me was building
structures, and like Old Boy Network disseminating the idea through
marketing strategies.

FC: In 1997 Josephine Bosma asked you in an interview: "Do you think
there are any specific issues for women online?" - and you answered:
"No, I don't think so really".

CS: [Laughter.] I still believe that.

FC: Yes? - That was my question.

CS: After four and a half years of Cyberfeminist practice and contexts
such as 'Women and New Media', and a series of lectures and events, I've
come to the conclusion that one can divide this topic into two areas.
One is the area of 'access', meaning, whether women have access to
knowledge and technology, and which is a social problem. The second area
is if the access exists, and the skills are there, what happens on the
net or with this medium? What factors determine WHAT is made? About that
there's very little which is convincing. Mostly it is a lot of arid ill-
defined essentialist crap, with which I want to have little to do with
because it reaffirms the already existing and unfavorable conditions
rather triggering something new. Feminist media theory that extends
beyond this definitely is a desiderat.

FC: Regarding the phrase 'essentialist crap': is my assumption right
that your focus of attention on systems and regulationg structures as
experimental settings - whether that is Cyberfeminism or net art
generators - can be see as an anti-essentialist strategy, which includes
your appropriations, plagiarizing and the use of already existing
material?

CS: There are not that few female artists whos' approach is the idea
that women have to develop their own aesthetics in order to counteract
the dominant order. But I've always had problems with that and didn't
know what that could be without predicating myself again in strict roles
and definitions. That is the problem with essentialism. The claimed
difference can easily be turned against women - even when they defined
it themselves. That doesn't take you anywhere and is just another trap.
Besides one of the miseries of identity politics was that the identities
certain communities and groups had developed seamlessly got
incorporated, for example by advertisement, what meant a complete turn
around of its actual intentions.

FC: That would be the case for the art referred to in the two volume
Suhrkamp Anthology 'Women in Art' by Gislind Nabakowski, Helke Sander
and Peter Gorsen…

CS: I don't know that one [laughter]…

FC: …or such art as Kiki Smith's, which I see as the antithesis to
your work.

CS: Maybe. My problem at present is nevertheless that the theme,
Cyberfeminism, has to some extent driven me into the so-called 'women's
corner'. What would be a broader definition and would include a more
extensive notion of my art is hardly taken into consideration. That is
why I am determined to take on other themes. The work about Sch