Faces Event

Our Bodies, Our Data: a real/virtual event
Video Stream

The concerns that surround the female body have been at the center of feminist discourses for decades. The internet gave us an opportunity to create the digital body, free of gender in a new borderless space, accompanied by rampant feelings that the age of fixed identities had ended. The image of the female body as a metaphor – for whatever is desired – continues to inspire many feminist artists to experiment with the conceptualization of the female body and gender. But what was experienced as a new freedom of expression in the past has changed drastically within a more commercialized World Wide Web. The internet has become a contested ground for different kinds of representation.

What we are experiencing today is a major transformation of our understanding of the body, due to social change as well as technological influences. How do today’s different feminisms react to this digital transformation? What new images about bodies and gender are being created and what do they mean?

The thematic complex serves as a starting point for an international online event with artists, activists, and theorists from the FACES network and beyond. FACES is a loose community and mailing list that has successfully existed since 1997. Numerous renowned actors in the field of media art are part of this network. The upcoming event in October is organized by FACES co-hosts Valie Djordjevic, Kathy Rae Huffman, and Ushi Reiter on behalf of the Frauenkulturbüro Nordrhein-Westfalen.