Artists' Television Access

Skippy Peanut Butter Jars (1980)

AS I SAID (1980)

Alphabet Song of A Young Girl (1986)

The Red Table Italian (1986)

A Survey of Computer Generated Women, 1980-1993 (1994)

Copper Giloth’s Feminist Computer Art explores a formative decade in the work of artist Copper Giloth, tracing her pioneering contributions to early computer art. After encountering computers while working as a welder in Massachusetts, Giloth pursued graduate study at the University of Illinois Chicago’s groundbreaking Electronic Visualization Lab, becoming part of the first generation of Chicago new media artists. During this period, she also embraced feminist liberation politics, which became central to her emerging artistic approach.

Focusing on the late 1970s through the 1980s, the exhibition – originally curated by Dr. Helena Shaskevich – highlights Giloth’s experimental integration of video and computer graphics, emphasizing her innovative use of programming as a creative medium. Her works investigate the expressive potential of code, foregrounding elements such as the glitch, repetition, and the generative possibilities of early programming. Through these strategies, Giloth transforms digital systems into sites of visual and conceptual exploration.

Crucially, Giloth’s engagement with emerging technologies constitutes a feminist practice. Working within a field historically dominated by men, she asserts authorship over computational tools while challenging assumptions about gender and technical expertise. Her use of code as an open, generative system resists fixed hierarchies and embraces multiplicity, aligning with feminist commitments to collaboration, process, and the destabilization of authority.

By revisiting this pivotal era, Copper Giloth’s Feminist Computer Art underscores Giloth’s influential role in shaping the language of early computer art and affirms the lasting impact of feminist perspectives within technological practice.