VNS Matrix-Pilled: Three Propositions for Revisiting 1990s Cyberfeminist Art Now

Abstract

Cultural studies scholar Jeremy Gilbert has argued for analysis of ‘the long 1990s’—a post-End of History period of technological advancement, cultural stagnation, and increasingly entrenched neoliberalism. According to Gilbert, the long 1990s are now—hopefully—over. This article argues that the Australian cyberfeminist artists VNS Matrix are, like the decade, overdue for comprehensive critical reassessment. As a starting point for this project, I set out three propositions for considering VNS Matrix’s artworks in light of current discourses at the intersection of art, technology, and feminism. Firstly, VNS Matrix wanted to abolish the family computer (meaning change the patriarchal structures of emotional attachment that shaped how women and queer people approached new technology). Secondly, VNS Matrix’s playful exploration of queer cyborgian sexuality pre-empted the ways in which sex, gender, and technology have become entwined in our ‘pharmacopornographic’ age, to quote Paul Preciado. Thirdly, decolonial critiques of art history mean that a technomaterialist approach is crucial for analysis of net art works; all that is digital begins in the physical. In the case of VNS Matrix, this framework means situating digital artworks in relation to the land that underpinned their genesis—Tartanya/Adelaide.