Linda Dement (born 1960 in Brisbane) is an Australian multidisciplinary artist, working in the fields of digital arts,

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmospher ...

, and writing

non-fiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...

. Dement is largely known for her exploration of the creative possibilities of emergent technologies such as the

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...

, 3-D modelling, interactive software, and early computing.

About

She began exhibiting in 1984.'Linda Dement' by Vickie Crowley in Gerstner, David A., ed. ''Routledge international encyclopedia of queer culture''. Routledge, 2006. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Fine Arts) from

City Art Institute, Sydney The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-inte ...

in 1988. Dement's work has been exhibited in Australia and internationally in galleries and festivals, including at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London,

Ars Electronica Ars Electronica Linz GmbH is an Austrian cultural, educational and scientific institute active in the field of new media art, founded in Linz in 1979. It is based at the Ars Electronica Center (AEC), which houses the Museum of the Future, in th ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, the International Symposia of Electronic Art in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

and

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

and the Impakt Media Arts Festival in Europe. Along with Australian artist collective VNS Matrix, Dement's work pioneered Australian cyberfeminism in art. Cyberfeminist politics and poetics used technology to deconstruct gender stereotypes in mainstream culture, and proactively situated women in relation to the rise of electronic culture in the early 1990s. Through her work, Dement aims to "give form to the unbearable." Dement's work has been described as depersonalised autobiography, that is, an appropriation of the digital as a space of expression, or a "rupture" in the info-tech dominated sphere of computer culture. Her work explores the relationship between the physical body and the body politic, exaggerating female "other-ness" or the "monstrous-feminine."

Censorship

Some of Dement's early works have come under censorship by the Australian Government. ''Typhoid Mary'' was taken to the

NSW Parliament The Parliament of New South Wales is a bicameral legislature in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), consisting of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly (lower house) and the New South Wales Legislative Council (upper house). Eac ...

as being "obscene" and subsequently came under the classification of the Australian Government's Office of Film and Literature as "not suitable for those under the age of 18." ''In My Gash'' also received a formal "Restricted" classification.

Works

Writing

*''Artists Thinking About Science'' (with Helen Watson-Verran et al.). Adelaide, S.A.: Australian Network for Art and Technology, 1994. *''I Really Want to Kill You But I Can't Remember Why'' (with Jasmine Hirst et al.). Woolloomooloo, NSW: Artspace Australia, 1995. *"Girl #4 Late 70s," in Peter Blazey et al. (eds.), ''Love Cries''. Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1995 *"Payment," in Leonie Stevens (ed.), ''Warp Drive''. Milsons Point, NSW: Random House, 1998 *''Byte Me: art + culture + technology'' (with Kevin Murray et al.). Bendigo, Vic.: Bendigo Art Gallery, 1999

Awards and Prizes

*Dement was twice awarded the Harries Australian National Digital Art Award in 2005 and 2006, was awarded a New Media Arts Fellowship in 1996 and the Digital Futures Fund in 2010 by the

Australia Council for the Arts The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

, Best CD-ROM at the 9th Stuttgarter Filmwinter Festival in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

; and Honorable Mentions by New Voices/New Visions,

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

; and Ars Electronica, Austria.

References

External links

Official website

Linda Dement , AVAA

Linda Dement , Scanlines
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dement, Linda 1960 births Living people 20th-century Australian women artists 20th-century Australian artists 21st-century Australian women artists 21st-century Australian artists Australian digital artists Women digital artists New media artists