VNS Matrix: The Future is Unmanned

In 1991, the Adelaide-based collective VNS Matrix put forth the short but radical Cyberfeminist Manifesto, coining the term that would soon influence artists and theorists across the world. The four members of the collective—V Barratt, Francesca da Rimini, Julianne Pierce and Josephine Starrs—were on a mission to wrench digital life from its masculine pretences, unplugging from the ‘big daddy mainframe’. Through their billboards, performances, exhibitions, and experimental video games, VNS Matrix foreground technology’s inextricable connections to the body. ‘We make art with our cunt’, they wrote in 1991; ‘the clitoris is a direct line to the matrix.’

As part of the closing programs for Amongst the clouds, VNS Matrix member Josephine Starrs will take audiences through the collective’s varied public and digital projects including the 1995 Artspace exhibition, All New Gen. The talk will be hosted in the Franco Belgiorno-Nettis Archive, which features exhibition ephemera from this prescient exhibition.