Microsoft Me / Click and Drag by Heather Cassils and Cathy Davies

[anna balint]

Cyberfem Spirit - Spirit of Data
Opening: November 30, 2001, 7 pm
Exhibition Dates: December 1, 2001 - January 13, 2002

For exhibition information: http://www.edith-russ-haus.de

Opening Performance 8 pm:
Microsoft Me / Click and Drag by Heather Cassils and Cathy Davies
The saying goes, "Behind every successful man stands a woman." but at the
Edith Russ Site for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany sometimes the men ARE
the women. The American artists Heather Cassils and Cathy Davies will show
themselves as Bill Gates in drag for their cyberfeminist performance
"Microsoft Me  Click and Drag" during the opening of the exhibition
"Cyberfem Spirit - Spirit of Data" on November 30, 2001 at 7 pm.
Dressed as clones of the Microsoft super power, the artists present texts
from a programmed speech generator which selects sections at random from a
series of interviews, statistics, fictions and presentations written by and
about Bill Gates. This is mixed together with images taken from the web
which include self portraits of employers, new age landscapes from Gate's
own Corbis image bank, images of office retail wholesalers of empty
cubicles and overlayed with words that summon up different meanings in the
contexts of feminism and corporate discourse. Microsoft Me/Click and Drag
juxtaposes the at times frighteningly utopian language of Microsoft with
the reality of the workplace. The artists use strip tease, biographical
anecdotes, improvisational dance and pie throwing anarchy in a commentary
on the relationship between masculinity, technology and power.
Edith Ruß Site for Media Art
Katharinenstr 23
D-26121 Oldenburg
t. +49 (0) 441 235 3208
f. +49 (0) 441 235 2161
info at edith-russ-haus.de
www.edith-russ-haus.de