[artinfo] disturb.the.peace "angry women" - open call

Jess Loseby jess at rssgallery.com
Tue Sep 27 00:45:05 CEST 2005


disturb.the.peace  "angry women" - open call

"Whoa! Why does this word carry so much weight, and why do these women want 
to
distance themselves so far from this word?" Once I had received a similar 
response from
three other women, as though anger was un-cool, or un-sexy, I started 
thinking of the
"Angry Young Men" of the fifties and sixties-the amorphous James Dean types 
whose
anger was sexy, because anger is one of the sanctioned responses that men 
have, and
women don't. No man would protest being featured in a book called Angry 
Young Men,
do you think?

[Interview with Andrea Juno, Ed of "angry women" (Juno Books, 1992)]



Disturb.the.Peace [angry woman] will be aimed at creating a collaborative 
net-based
installation with the core concept of the visual portrait of feminine 
anger. The net offers a
canvas for self-portraiture and self-documentary, which both men and woman 
users and
artists have used to explore the many eclectic thematics that make up 
contemporary
net.art. However, anger - that non P.C, emotional serpent - still remains 
visually elusive.
Emails are full of bile, blogs map outpourings of rage and disgust, 
newsgroups simmer
over with adversary and cutting one-liners but not, apparently, visual 
artworks...? Can
anger be beautiful? Can rage be aesthetic? In popular culture there are a 
range of angry
babes to pick: from girl-power to the Powerpuff girls but

"...their popularity may not reflect a dramatic shift in our society's view 
of gender roles,
but rather our inability to stomach female anger unless it's sugar-coated 
in cuteness and
scored with a pervasively chirpy, non-threatening tone."

[Powerpuff Girls to the Rescue: Heather Havrilesky, Salon. Posted July 5, 
2002]

---------[Gender]

D/t\P is a call to women artists to visually explore the face of [their] 
anger. It will make no
apologies for being a call predominantly for female work. Male submissions 
will not be
excluded from open submissions but must demonstrate that they are either a) 
in
collaboration with a female or b) make significant comment or exploration 
on a visual
expression of female anger beyond (what Jess Loseby) judges to be a 
stereotypical
portrayal. It will be possible to submit work anonymously or through 
androgynous
pseudonyms. Beyond gender, all work submitted must meet the basic 
requirements of
thematic response and net usability to be included.

---------[Collaboration]

D/T\P is a collaborative artwork. It is curated by Jess Loseby as lead 
artist only through
organisation and realisation of the concept in the provistion of webspace. 
Artists are
invited to add pages and use the site/space as much or as little as they 
desire. Work will
be open for free submission. There will almost no curatorial control but 
preference is to
show work that not only visually explores anger but how that anger is 
amplified and
augmented by the Internet and net technology/software; Can anger be 
interactive? Can
anger be translocal? It is hoped that work that will go beyond static imagery.

--------- [tech]

html, flash, streaming video - cross browser compatible - collaborating 
artists choice

---------[Submission]

Please send work as a email attachment (under 3MB) or work URL with name, 
location,
url, email address and bio (150wds or under) to jess at d-t-p.tv or 
jess at rssgallery.com.
FTP details may be provided on request. All work will be shown as "windows" 
within the
overall site design unless specified. If work is hosted on a url external 
to d-t-p.tv please
provide a "close window" button.



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