[ISEA98] Institutional Presentation: Cutting Edge Research Group – Body, Territory, and New Technologies

Institutional Presentation

To examine the part that technologies play in shifting the way we perceive gender and the body and in the shaping of our experiences and identity. The Close Scrutiny session will focus on questions of gender in relation to the new emergent electronic technologies. It will aim to bridge the gap between a range of disciplines and develop a wide perspective on how the new technologies are cutting across conventional disciplinary boundaries, and will consider what have been, hitherto, distinct areas of study by exploring the relationships between technologies, the body and territories

The Cutting Edge Women’s Research Group based at the University of Westminster is a group of female practitioners and theorists investigating leading edge technological developments in art, design, media practice, theories and feminism. The members represent diverse areas in the fields of art and design in an interdisciplinary framework and embrace historical and contemporary perspectives of technological endeavour in these areas. In May 1995, Cutting Edge ran a day symposium and digital art exhibition “Desire by Design” at the University of Westminster. The focus of the symposium and exhibition was to explore feminist perspectives on art, design, media and technology. This was the basis for a collection of papers by the core members of the group and a range of invited contributors due to be published into a book “Desire By Design, Body, Territory and New Technologies” in September 1998.
Selection of members of the Cutting Edge Research Group at the University of Westminster:

  • Dr. Helen Coxall, UK
  • Jackie Hatfield, UK
  • Jane Prophet, UK
  • Gail Pearce, UK