n.paradoxa
online, issue 5
November 1997
Editor: Katy Deepwelln.paradoxa online issue no.5 Nov 1997

ISSN: 1462-0426
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Published in English as an online edition

by KT press, www.ktpress.co.uk,
as issue 5, n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal
http://www.ktpress.co.uk/pdf/nparadoxaissue5.pdf
Nov 1997, republished in this form: January 2010
ISSN: 1462-0426
All articles are copyright to the author
All reproduction & distribution rights reserved to n.paradoxa and KT press.
No part of this publication may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form orby any electronic, mechanical or other means, including photocopying and recording,information storage or retrieval, without permission in writing from the editor ofn.paradoxa.
Views expressed in the online journal are those of the contributors
and not necessarily those of the editor or publishers.
Editor: ktpress@ktpress.co.uk
International Editorial Board: Hilary Robinson, Renee Baert,
Janis Jefferies, Joanna Frueh, Hagiwara Hiroko, Olabisi Silva.
www.ktpress.co.uk

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List of Contents
Katy Deepwell Profile of Ostranenie : Women Filmmakers fromEastern EuropeInterviews with Dragana Zarevac, Odiliya Yankova,
Branka Milicic-Davic and Ulrike Ettinger
4
Katy Deepwell The Cyberknitting event at Ostranenie,Bauhaus, Dessau and 2nd interview with Branka Milicic-Davic

12

Katy Deepwell Interview with Irina Aktuganova of Gallery
21, St Petersburg

17

Catherine Elwes The Pursuit of the Personal in British
Video Art

22

Rose Issa 'Re-Orienting our Views': A rediscovery of Iranthrough its cinema and women filmmakers

39

Mali Wu
Wu: A Profile

45

Linda Jaivin ‘Consuming Texts: the work of Mali Wu’

54

Mare Tralla T.Est.Art : A View of Estonian Feminism

57

Diary of an Ageing Art Slut

66

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Cyberknitting event at Ostranenie
Katy Deepwell

The Cyberknitting event, which took place at Ostranenie film festival in Dessau
on Saturday 8 November, was initiated by Nina Czegledy. The idea for the event
arose from discussions amongst some of the participants at the Crossing Overworkshop in Sofia last year.
CYBERKNITTING (for men and women) is an attempt to build upon theconvergence and/or discrepancy of:
1. Knitting: as an ancient activity, usually practised by women and lately by men(ref. to primary meaning of : to weave/ purl/ crochet/ hook/ knot/ intertwine/ braid/
sew yarn into fabric, with needles)
2. Cyberknitting: as a recent activity of networking within the Internet, usuallypracticed by men and lately by women (ref. to the metaphorical meaning of : to draw
together and join closely, to spin a story.
Prior to the event, the invited Cyberknitters were encouraged to send in pages forthe website:1. to explore the Cyber knitting metaphor and present their research at the festival.
Presentations were asked to be informal in style with the aim of provoking discussion.
2. to propose a favourite knitting pattern for their own page background. Theirtext will be set against this background on the web-space. The two streams of input
from: virtual cyber knitters and on-site participants will be processed on the web-site
after Ostranenie .
The first Cyberknitting Show contained the following stitches:n.paradoxa online issue no.5 Nov 1997
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A public discussion, slightly moderated by the cyberknitters in charge, with thecrucial contribution of the invited cyberknitters + subtle performance (physicaltheater, video and web images & texts, sound environment).
On stage at the beginning of the event were a number of participants attempting
to define the problems and meanings of cyber-knitting: Nina Czegledy, Iliyana
Nedkova, Calin Dan, Katy Deepwell (who chaired the event), Erika Pastor, Tapio
Makela, Inke Arns, and Edi Muka
The event began with Tapio Makela's electronic recounting of an imaginary
history of cyberknitting where genders and technologies were remixed to analyseprecisely the limitations of gender stereotyping and the power of histories incontrolling illusionary destinies. Iliyana Nedkova began by offering a brief historyof the generation of the term cyberknitting from discussions in Sofia. Cyberknitting
could be a different metaphor for the 'information super-highway' ; one whichemphasised relationships and connection between people rather than technologicaldevelopment. Erika Pastor raised the importance of narrative as a means of changing
understanding and it was the potential in this which interested her. Inke Arns,
sceptically suggested that her dislike of knitting as a girl, meant she was reluctant
to take up the metaphor. She immediately proposed as an alternative: human-netting.
(She had brought with her the only jumper she ever knitted). Katy Deepwell respondedwith the idea that a reinvestment in seemingly negative terms, including craft andknitting, had offered a radical potential to redefine a field in the past, most notably
amongst feminist artists. Edi Muka suggested that the metaphor could address theproblems of Eastern European countries by its emphasis on connecting the individual
to the state through civil society. Could cyberknitting allow for the net activity to be
seen in more complexterminology and with greater social and political awarenessthan has been the pattern to date? Would it enable, as Nina Czegledy had hoped,that greater attention would now be paid to social and gender relations in the context
of a larger political framework? Would the increasing involvement of women in netactivities act as a means to redefine both gender relations and East/West relations
in media art?
As those on stage struggled to define the project, the simultaneous performanceby GROUP BAZA: Vladimir Barbul, Vera Midic & Branka Milicic-Davic had alreadystarted. Inspired by the ideas behind cyberknitting and the atmosphere of the event, the performance actions of Group Baza were intended to question the wide-spreadpractice of conference-making and test the conventional roles employed inconferences between moderators, key speakers, participants, audience. While one
performer knitted the audience together with wool, climbing under the chairs andwrapping their ankles, in the hope of linking them closer together, another memberof the group intervened on the stage, mimicking the mechanical repetitive actions
needed in mechanical production. As the performance continued, those assembled
on the stage were gradually knitted to members of the audience by the red wool andn.paradoxa online issue no.5 Nov 1997

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13then several were steadily lifted from the stage, even as they spoke, by members ofGroup Baza.
As the performers were slowly one-by-one removed from the stage. Katy Deepwelland Erika Pastor were left on the stage to try to continue their enquiry into politics
and relations behind the metaphor of cyberknitting. They too then voluntarily left
the stage and went into the audience to enquire about their views. Meanwhile, thesound by Denis Neimand was installed as an environment in the background. Group
Baza intervened at one moment , even in this sphere, replacing at one point his morecalculated mixing of two tapes of Russian singers imitating birds and the powerfulroll of a drumbeat generated on top of a waterholder at a former nuclear power station
with Serbian folk music!
Irony and contradiction seemed to be the order of the day yet without a collapse
into anarchy. Instead what was created had all
the qualities of simulacra, with those on stage
attempting to grasp or develop a notion likecyberknitting, and to bring together different
realities, different perspectives in the middle ofan excessive overload of actions, events, noiseand visual imagery was the point of the hour.
Meanwhile, the audience, madeincreasingly aware of their passivity as they
Above: Andrea Otero Der Glaserne Bauch (1997)
Right: Francesca da Rimini & JosephineStarrs White (1996)
Far right: Zoran Solomun & Helga
Reidemeister Frauen in Schwarz (1997)
Below: Susan Hinnum Woman's Gotta
Have It (1996)
Below, right: Monika Wenczel Turn Aroundn.paradoxa online issue no.5 Nov 1997
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were tied to eachother, was bombarded with images from the selected video works,screened on two large projections. The video selection by Nina Czegledy for the event
included :- the films of Lisette Stalenhoef Zonder Titel (1996), Caterina Borelli Page
1, Page 2; Constance Westhofen My Body is My Castle (1996) .
Interview with Branka Milicic-Davic after the Ostranenie event
Branka Milicic-Davic: My video in Crossing Over is connected to theperformance of group Baza in Cyberknitting. At the Crossing Over workshop wewere talking about the bad feeling of sitting at conferences for hours and hearing
nothing interesting. We started to joke and laugh about it but it turned into a more
serious project. Knitting always fascinated me - it is just one line. Yet there is a lot
you can make out of it. With simple knitting you are creating something but if youpull about your pullover you would see it was just one line. My work is very minimalist.
I don't use a lot of props or set designs - the same is true in knitting. This was thefirst idea/impulse. The second that conferences should be ruined in order to bringpeople together more. If someone is attacking you, you would look around forsomeone who could help you. That's what I realised people did. We somehow
simulated a chaotic situation in which people were communicating in a strange way.
At the conference we had participation from the conference speakers and theperformers who helped us bring the chairs from the stage. We went under theaudience's chairs to make an experience of how it will be in another world - knitted& out of sight. To see what's underneath at a deeper level and secondly to see how
people will react.
Katy Deepwell: There were whoops of laughter and others in the audience
who were distressed at being locked in by the red wool you used to tie them
together.
Branka Milicic-Davic : We connected a lot of people with the wool but no one
can tell it was not possible to move with the wool. It's more a mental blockade - youare connected with someone else in the room. In the end, the wool on stage connectedwith most of the audience. People, performers formed not a proper net but a strange
one. That's what cyber-knitting should be.
Katy Deepwell: So, do you think in this chaotic performance we somehow
managed to reproduce or demonstrate the limits of the net - which was also theidea of cyberknitting.
Branka Milicic-Davic : I hope people realise this because it's really limited bythe simple fact that many people are not using the net - because of money and access,n.paradoxa online issue no.5 Nov 1997

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it's like an expensive hobby for a few. In Yugoslavia, we have just one commercialprovider. It is limited in many ways, but it is also a great possibility. Sometimes you
do not have enough money or time to travel somewhere but through the internet
you can be in many places in a way. You can collect information, a lot of impressions.
That's why I like some mailing lists, the East Syndicate for exchange of information,
Nettime for contemplation or more serious thinking, Faces as a female list - a lot ofdifferent lists. I run a local list, local by language, but it has subscribers from 10
European and non-European countries, people who have left Yugoslavia. Different
connections can be made.
Katy Deepwell : Many people in the audience commented that they were in
and out of the conversation because the images of the films projected were so
distracting. This it seems also happens with the net, endless graphics and very
little information but much visual stimulation. The films however were full ofcontent.
Branka Milicic-Davic: More information chaos, people are bombed byinformation, usually that selected by authorities and institutions, and then they aretrying to select their own way. And in this search they are going everywhere acrossthe net, pornography, real-audio, music, quick-time video. Sometimes I find myself
downloading more and more and I ask myself what do I need it for? I don't need it atall. It's just an expensive toy. For people who are serious in their work, they canalways make a limit. Everything is useful if you know how to use it. Just a small
extent of people in our society are addicts - it's up to you how to use it for yourself.

Copyright © : Katy Deepwell,1997
n.paradoxa : Issue No.5, November 1997

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