Contested Zones: Futurity and Technological Art

With reference to the video documentary Artists in Cyber-culture and other interviews with Australian women electronic artists, the author argues that a high-tech future in which the body is obsolete and evolutionary powers are ceded to machines is not a universally shared vision, but a projection from a particular gendered and cultural standpoint. It calls attention to the diversity of views technological artists may hold about futurity, newness and bodies, and suggests that popular fascination with the “newest and latest” need not divert artists from investigating alternatives to dominant Western technologics.