“Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991” examines the pioneering role of women in digital art. Comprising more than one hundred works by fifty artists, the exhibition includes painting, sculpture, installation, film, performance and many computer-generated drawings and texts. Focusing on women who were among the first to use the computer – mainframe and minicomputers – as a tool for art making. They are accompanied by other artists who made the computer their subject or worked in a computational way with algorithmic or mathematically based systems. The exhibition begins with works made in academic or industrial computer labs and ends with others made on the first personal computers in the last years before the World Wide Web made the internet publicly accessible. Set within a period that was also marked by the second wave of feminism, it documents a lesser-known history of the inception of digital art, countering conventional narratives on art and technology by focusing entirely on female figures.

The exhibition is curated by Michelle Cotton and organized by Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, and Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. It is available at the Kunsthalle Wien from 28 February to 25 May 2025.

Read more: https://kunsthallewien.at/en/exhibition/radical-software/