Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991 reconstructs a suppressed chapter of digital art history, drawing on more than 100 works by 50 artists across 14 countries to demonstrate that women were central — not peripheral — to the computer revolution from its earliest years.
About This Book
The standard histories of digital art have long centred a narrow set of figures. This survey dismantles that consensus. Spanning the 1960s through to the late 1980s, it traces how female artists engaged with computer technologies and cybernetics at the very moment those disciplines were taking shape. The result is a rigorous reframing of early digital art — one that does not supplement the existing canon but fundamentally contests it. With 27 new artist interviews and over 200 illustrations, it functions equally as archival resource and critical argument. The richly illustrated timeline, reaching from 1613 to 1991, situates these artists within the longest possible view of women and computation.
Key Features
- 504 pages of exhibition documentation, artist interviews, and over 200 illustrations
- Essays by Tina Rivers Ryan, Margit Rosen, and curator Michelle Cotton
- 27 new interviews with artists drawn from 14 countries
- Illustrated timeline spanning 1613 to 1991
- Published by Walther König, Köln, 1991
What You'll Discover
- How female artists shaped the inception of digital art and cybernetic practice across five decades
- The geographic breadth of this history — 50 artists from 14 countries, countering a predominantly Anglophone narrative
- The critical frameworks developed by Tina Rivers Ryan, Margit Rosen, and Michelle Cotton for reassessing women's roles in early computing
- A timeline that extends the history of women and computation back to 1613, grounding contemporary digital practice in a far longer intellectual tradition
About the Author
Michelle Cotton is the curator of this exhibition and a contributor of one of the three new essays featured in the publication. [Details available upon request]
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 504
- Dimensions: 30.5 x 24.8 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783753307343
- Publisher: Walther König, Köln
- Publication Date: 1991
Perfect For: Art historians, digital art researchers, curators, and designers invested in recovering the overlooked contributions of women to computing and new media practice.