Ada X, formerly known as Studio XX, is a feminist artist-run centre based in Montreal, Canada. [1] Founded in 1996, it focuses on the promotion and production of new media art by offering workshops, artist residencies and by hosting exhibitions. [2] It operates in French and English. [2] The studio is currently located at 4001 rue Berri in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood of Montreal. [1]
Studio XX was founded by Sheryl Hamilton, Patricia Kearns, Kathy Kennedy, and Kim Sawchuk in 1996. [3] They started with an equipment sharing program and a computer lab that they themselves put together from older computer models. [4] Their intention was to create a feminist space that encouraged the creation and dissemination of new media art. [3] Additionally, Studio XX acted and still acts today as a source of education and conversation on the topic of digital technologies with the goal of "demystifying and deconstructing digital technologies through critical examination." [3] This was and still is a part of a philosophy known Cyberfeminism. [4] The studio has an emphasis on developing a digital democracy. [5] Digital democracy ensures accessibility to and training on digital technologies for those who may face hurdles in obtaining this knowledge otherwise. This entails educating, equipping, exhibiting, and celebrating the works of people who are marginalized within the community. [5]
Until 2020, Ada X operated under the name Studio XX. [6] The XX in the title was in reference to the female chromosome. [7] However, after some deliberation, members decided that the name did not accurately represent the beliefs of the community as it was not inclusive of trans, non-binary and queer artists. [7] The name Ada X, standing for Art, Digital, Activism was chosen. [6] The singular X represents the studio's history as well as being a symbol for "an intersection of gender that is rich, manifold and fluid" [6] In conjunction with this name change of the studio, the affiliated radio program XX Files changed its name to Ffiles. [8]
Members of the studio have access to a variety of services including access to the computer lab, equipment and space rentals. [9] Since 2017, Ada X has introduced a unique theme that guides its programming over a certain time period. [10] Past and current themes include, DISLOCATIONS (2017-2018), Invisible Labor (2018-2019) and Slow Tech (2019-2022). [10]
Ada X offers artist residencies. This is a six-week period of time, in which the artist chosen has access to a private workstation, workshops and studio equipment in order to realize a project. [11] They are remunerated with an artist fee. [11]
Ada X offers a series of professional training workshops. Some past workshops have included topics such as website production, electronic audio, fabrication of solar batteries etc. [9] Additionally, Ada X offers a range of educational activities aimed at younger audiences. [12] Ada X also organizes and curates a variety of exhibits as part of its programming. [13]
HTMlles is an international media arts and digital arts festival established by Ada X in 1997. [14] The festival takes place across multiple venues, and it occurs biennially. [15] The festival's mandate states that "each edition explores urgent socio-political questions through a series of exhibitions, round tables, conferences, performances and workshops." [16] HTMlles Festival regularly partners with various Montreal based organizations including Eastern Bloc, Feminist Media Studio, Groupe Intervention Video , La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, Moving Image Research Laborator y, Laboratoire NT2, OBORO, Studio 303, Technoculture, Art and Games (TAG), and Articule. [17]
| Year | Themes | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Slow Tech | [19] |
| 2018 | Beyond the # — Failures and Becomings | [20] |
| 2016 | Terms of Privacy | [21] |
| 2014 | ZÉR0 FUTUR{E} | [22] |
| 2012 | Risky Business | [23] |
| 2010 | Home Land | [24] |
| 2007 | Crowd Control | [25] |
| 2005 | Peripheries + Proximities | [26] |
| 2003 | Active Agent | [27] |
| 2002 | The Double, the Multiple and Contamination in Web Art | [28] |
| 2001 | Mutating Cultures and Identity | [29] |
| 2000 | n.a | |
| 1998 | n.a | |
| 1997 | n.a |
Ffiles Radio, formerly known as XX files, is an intersectional feminist radio project started in 1996 by Ada X founder, Kathy Kennedy and longtime contributor and current production coordinator Deborah VanSlet. [8] Similar to Ada X, the show's contents focus on conversation related to digital technologies. [8] Some themes include "transmission practices, sound healing, electronic music discourse, noise, techno-feminisms, the voice, and much more." [30] Ffiles is broadcast on CKUT 90.3 FM every Wednesday from 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM EST. [31] Additionally, Ffiles also has a monthly broadcast on N10.AS Radio. According to CKUT 90.3 FM past hosts include, Valérie D. Walker, Anita Cotic, Bérengère Marin-Dubuard, Britt Wray, Maia Iotzova, Maya Richman, Stéphanie Dufresne, Amanda-É. Clément, and Nnedimma Nnebe. [8] Current hosts include Julia Dyck, Amanda Harvey, Miranda Jones, Sophy Merizzi, and Sophie Marisol. [8]
Matricules is an archival project launched by Ada X in 2008. [5] It is one of the largest archives of digital art started by women. [32] The archive has over 3,000 pieces. [33]
.dpi was an online publication produced with Ada X that ran from 2004-2015. [34] The magazine implemented a feminist perspective on the themes of art and digital technologies. [35] The magazine was released bi-annually with its contents revolving around a specific theme such as Hacktivism. [36] In 2012, the magazine re-launched with a more focused mandate and structure. [36] Then Editor-in-Chief Sophie Le-Phat Ho stated, " We want to welcome reflections and showcase feminist aspects of different digital art events and initiatives. We want to build a discourse of feminism in regard to digital culture, especially here in Montreal.” [36]
Ladyfest is a community-based, not-for-profit global music and arts festival for feminist and women artists. Individual Ladyfests differ, but usually feature a combination of bands, musical groups, performance artists, authors, spoken word and visual artists, films, lectures, art exhibitions and workshops; it is organized by volunteers.
The Woman's Building was a non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic designer Sheila Levrant de Bretteville and art historian Arlene Raven. The center was open from 1973 until 1991. During its existence, the Los Angeles Times called the Woman's Building a "feminist mecca."
LA Freewaves, also known as Freewaves, is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that advocates for, and exhibits, new, uncensored, independent media. It hosts an online media archive as a resource to facilitate the exchange of media art internationally. Anne Bray, with representatives of other communities, founded LA Freewaves in 1989 and has worked to administer the non-profit since it was launched at the American Film Institute's National Video Festival. Bray serves as director of the festival and has been working in the field of media arts since the mid-1970s as an artist and teacher.
Lynn Hershman Leeson is a multimedia American artist and filmmaker. Her work combines art with social commentary, particularly on the relationship between people and technology. Leeson is a pioneer in new media, and her work with technology and in media-based practices helped legitimize digital art forms. Her interests include feminism, race, surveillance, and artificial intelligence and identity theft through algorithms and data tracking. She has been referred to as a "new media pioneer" for the prescient incorporation of new science and technologies in her work. She is based in San Francisco, California.
The Edgy Women Festival was an annual festival of "short, highly physical works by women, often characterized by a transdisciplinary approach and politicized content." which ran for 23 years from 1994 to 2016. Presented by Studio 303, a dance and interdisciplinary-arts centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Edgy Women focuses on feminist perspectives with workshops and forums, performance events, and socializing. Studio 303's artistic and general manager Miriam Ginestier programmed Edgy Women from 1995 to 2014.
La Centrale galerie Powerhouse is an artist-run space in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, founded in 1973. For decades, it was known as the city's only feminist art gallery.
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Inc. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization supporting art and technology for social good in San Francisco, California. Gray Area hosts exhibitions and music events, software and electronics classes, a media lab, and resident-artist program. Gray Area Foundation for the Arts’ stated purpose is to bring “together the best creative coders, data artists, designers, and makers to create experiments that build social consciousness through digital culture.”
New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D printing, and cyborg art. The term defines itself by the thereby created artwork, which differentiates itself from that deriving from conventional visual arts. New Media art has origins in the worlds of science, art, and performance. Some common themes found in new media art include databases, political and social activism, Afrofuturism, feminism, and identity, a ubiquitous theme found throughout is the incorporation of new technology into the work. The emphasis on medium is a defining feature of much contemporary art and many art schools and major universities now offer majors in "New Genres" or "New Media" and a growing number of graduate programs have emerged internationally. New media art may involve degrees of interaction between artwork and observer or between the artist and the public, as is the case in performance art. Yet, as several theorists and curators have noted, such forms of interaction, social exchange, participation, and transformation do not distinguish new media art but rather serve as a common ground that has parallels in other strands of contemporary art practice. Such insights emphasize the forms of cultural practice that arise concurrently with emerging technological platforms, and question the focus on technological media per se. New Media art involves complex curation and preservation practices that make collecting, installing, and exhibiting the works harder than most other mediums. Many cultural centers and museums have been established to cater to the advanced needs of new media art.
Anna Friz is a Canadian artist and musician whose work often pertains to, and utilizes the medium of, sound and radio. Starting in 1993, Friz has been involved with campus-community radio stations across Canada, and also works as a sound designer for film and stage performance. She has contributed original programming to numerous Canadian campus-community stations such as CITR-FM, CKUT-FM and CKUW, as well as for the CBC and Kunstradio, Austria.
Kim Sawchuk is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies, Research Chair in Mobile Media Studies, and Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies at Concordia University in Montreal Canada. A feminist media studies scholar, Sawchuk's research spans the fields of art, gender, and culture, examining the intersection of technology into peoples lives and how that changes as one ages.
Skawennati is a Mohawk multimedia artist, best known for her online works as well as Machinima that explore contemporary Indigenous cultures, and what Indigenous life might look like in futures inspired by science fiction. She served as the 2019 Indigenous Knowledge Holder at McGill University. In 2011, she was awarded an Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship which recognized her as one of "the best and most relevant native artists."
Nell Tenhaaf is a Canadian artist, teacher, writer and feminist.
Andréanne Abbondanza-Bergeron is a Canadian contemporary artist working in installation, sculpture and photography. www.abbondanzabergeron.com
Carmen Coulombe was a Canadian artist.
Julie Tremble is a French-Canadian artist living in Montreal, Quebec. She has held coordinating positions in a variety of cultural organisations in Quebec and Ontario. Since 2015, she has headed Vidéographe, the Montreal-based artist-run centre focused on moving images.
Faces is an international online community of women who share an interest in digital media arts. They communicate via an email list and organize events both online and off. Founded in 1997, this informal network includes activists, artists, critics, theoreticians, technicians, journalists, researchers, programmers, networkers, web designers, and educators.
Barbara Steinman D.F.A. is a Canadian artist known for her work in video and installation art.
Behnaz Farahi is an Iranian-born American interdisciplinary designer and educator whose work melds architecture, fashion, interaction design, computational design, wearable technology and the human body. Her designs often explore the possibilities of human interaction with the environment and how technology can facilitate this interplay. Her work engages with the human body's relationship to its surroundings and how wearable technology can respond to, or be influenced by stimuli such as human emotions or environmental factors. Leveraging technology and art, Farahi's works are commentaries on power dynamics, society, and identity, frequently drawing inspiration from her cultural background and Western theories and practices, underpinned by theoretical concepts including socio-political feminist theory and anthropology.
Chun Hua Catherine Dong (she/they) is a Chinese-born Canadian multimedia artist. Dong’s artistic practice is based in performance art, photography, video, installation, virtuality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and 3D printing within the contemporary context of global feminism.
Sonia Paço-Rocchia /so.ˈnja ˈpa.so ˈrɔ.kja/, born in 1982 in Montreal, is a composer, multidisciplinary artist, improviser, bassoonist and creative coder.
