Melinda Rackham is an Australian artist, writer and curator.

Education and early art

Rackham studied sculpture and performance at the

College of Fine Arts The School of Fine Arts or College of Fine Arts is the official name or part of the name of several schools of fine arts, often as an academic part of a larger university. These include: The Americas North America *Alabama School of Fin ...

in Sydney, graduating in 1989 with the Sculpture and Alumni prizes. It was here she was first involved in Australian artist-run initiatives, initially as co-Director in 1987 (with Adrienne Doig) of ArtHaus laneway gallery in

Darlinghurst, New South Wales Darlinghurst is an inner-city, eastern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Darlinghurst is located immediately east of the Sydney central business district (CBD) and Hyde Park, within the local government area of the City of Syd ...

, then as a member of Ultimo Project Studio Collective in Ultimo and

Glebe Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...

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 ...

. In 1995, while completing a Master of Arts in Women's Studies at the

University of Wollongong The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...

, Rackham became one of the earliest Australian curators of

internet art upright=1.3, "Simple Net Art Diagram", a 1997 work by Michael Sarff and Tim Whidden Internet art (also known as net art) is a form of new media art distributed via the Internet. This form of art circumvents the traditional dominance of the phy ...

. In collaboration with Louise Manner, Ali Smith and Sandy O’Sullivan, Rackham produced the 1995 exhibition ''WWWO: Wollongong Worlds Women Online'' – an Australian online women's group exhibition, featuring the first or early digital works from 30 Australian women including Francis Dyson and

Mez Breeze Mez Breeze is an Australian-based artist and practitioner of net.art, working primarily with code poetry, electronic literature, mezangelle, and digital games. Born Mary-Anne Breeze, she uses a number of avatar nicknames, including Mez and Net ...

. In 2000, Rackham's ''carrier'' won The Mayne Award for Multimedia, part of the

Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia, announced during Adelaide Writers' Week, as part of the Adelaide Festival. The awards i ...

. In an interview with

Eugene Thacker Eugene Thacker is an American philosopher, poet, and author. He is Professor of Media Studies at The New School in New York City. His writing is often associated with the philosophy of nihilism and pessimism. Thacker's books include ''In the Dus ...

in CTheory, Rackham speaks of dealing with the body at a molecular level "infectious agents... steaming open protoplasmic envelopes, penetrating cellular cores, crossing species boundaries, and shattering illusions of the discrete autonomy of ourselves" In a paper analysing ''carrier'' for the academic journal

Biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...

, scholar Tully Barnett connects the ''carrier'' to posthumanist theories, and describes it as "a biopoiitical web-based work that sets out to destabilize users' traditional or conventional notions of the body." The work is "a text- and image-based multimedia work that invites the reader to navigate through a narrative of infection and illness." Darren Tofts describes ''carrier'' as "a work that interprets the body as a navigable zone or space of ethereal strangeness." Rackham's artworks were widely exhibited during the first wave of internet art (1995–2003) being included in seminal exhibitions like ''Art Entertainment Network'', ''Beyond Interface'', ISEA, European Media Art Festival,

transmediale Transmediale, stylised as transmediale is an annual festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, usually held over five days at the end of January and the beginning of February. Transmediale takes the form of a conference (sometimes called ...

, Perspecta99, Biennale de Montreal 2000, and Biennial of Buenos Aires 2002. She is founder and producer the online media arts forum, –empyre–, from 2002 as part of her doctoral thesis on Art and Identity in Virtual Reality Environments. -empyre- featured in events at

NTT InterCommunication Center NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) is a media art gallery in Tokyo Opera City Tower in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Ja ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

, and

documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultural ...

in the

Documenta 12 magazines ''Documenta 12 magazines'' (also ''the Magazine project'' or simply ''the magazines'') was a central project of the 12th edition (2007) of the documenta exhibition, similar in dimensions and world outreach to the "platforms" of the previous edit ...

project (2006). Building "empyrean" – one of Australia's first multi-user virtual reality environments, Rackham explored the conception of electronically mediated environments as "soft skinned space", and encouraged users' to explore their relationship with their avatars. Two of Rackham's internet artworks are included in N. Katherine Hayle's ''Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary'' – a book designed to help electronic literature move into the classroom along with the CD "The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1".

Work

In April 2003, Rackham was invited to be the inaugural Curator of Networked Media at the

Australian Centre for the Moving Image ACMI, formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, is Australia's national museum of film, television, videogames, and art. ACMI was established in 2002 and is based at Federation Square in Melbourne, Victoria. During the 2014-15 fina ...

(ACMI) in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/ Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metro ...

and from 2010 to 2012 was co-curator for Australia's Royal Institution. She was director of the

Australian Network for Art and Technology The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT), was founded by the Australian Experimental Art Foundation (then the Experimental Art Foundation) in 1988. ANAT is a nonprofit organization that provides tools to assist Australian artists, part ...

from 2005 until 2009. She fostered the development of wearable technologies – producing the re:Skin Masterclass, and curating Coded Cloth exhibition of

wearable technology Wearable technology is any technology that is designed to be used while worn. Common types of wearable technology include smartwatches and smartglasses. Wearable electronic devices are often close to or on the surface of the skin, where they detec ...

at Samstag Museum in 2008. As an adjunct professor at

RMIT University RMIT University, officially the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology,, section 4(b) is a public research university in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1887 by Francis Ormond, RMIT began as a night school offering classes in art, scien ...

,from 2009 to 2012, Rackham continued to curate and write on the emerging art and cultures manifesting across networked, responsive, biological, wearable and distributed practices and environments. In 2010 she curated "Dream Worlds: Australian Moving Image", platforming artists on the 27 meter long public screen in Beijing's exclusive Sanlitun Village and large screens in Xian, and examined the cultural impact of media arts in China and Hong Kong. After researching and writing the monograph ''Catherine Truman: Touching Distance'' published in 2016, she took a sabbatical and lived part-time over a period of two years on the

Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara, also known as APY, APY Lands or ''the Lands'', is a large, sparsely-populated local government area (LGA) for Aboriginal people, located in the remote north west of South Australia. Some of the aṉangu ...

(APY) lands of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

. In 2017 Rackham was appointed Adjunct Research Professor at UniSA Creative,

University of South Australia The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...

, where she continues to investigate and publish on the arts, environment and feminism. In 2019 she completed a suite of essays for

Cyberfeminist Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, methodology or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to describe the wor ...

sheroes VNS Matrix Archive, and is co-authoring with Elvis Richardson, the forthcoming ''CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008'' documenting the origins and evolution of ''CoUNTess'' and proposing interventions into gender asymmetry in the Australian artworld.

Adoption

Rackham was an active member of the adoptee advocacy group IDentityRites from 2014 to 2017. She served on the Steering Committee, which commissioned "The Space Between", a commemorative public artwork in recognition of the long lasting effects of forced adoption practices in South Australia, located in Grundy Gardens along Adelaide's

River Torrens The River Torrens , (Karrawirra Parri / Karrawirraparri) is the most significant river of the Adelaide Plains. It was one of the main reasons for the siting of the city of Adelaide, capital of South Australia. It flows from its source in the ...

, unveiled on 14 July 2016. With IDentityRites, Rackham co-authored and co-produced a volume of poetry and prose, "ADOPTED", in 2017, and in 2018 she featured in Heather Waters'

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

on the lifelong effects of adoption, titled ''You Should be Grateful''.

Awards

* 2018

SALA Festival The South Australian Living Artists Festival (SALA, or SALA Festival) is a statewide, open-access visual arts festival which takes place during August in South Australia. SALA features a range of approximately 600 venues including galleries and ...

Patron's Art Writer's Award, Australia * 2001 SoundSpace Award for Virtual Environments, Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Germany * 2000 The Mayne Award for Multimedia as part of the

* 1999 Gram Internet Art Prize, Argentina

Publications

* 2019 "Essays: VNS Matrix" "Manifesto", "Game Girl", "A Tender Hex", "@go #91010", * 2017 "ADOPTED", * 2016 ''Catherine Truman: Touching Distance'',

References

External links

empyre list

ORCID
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rackham, Melinda 1959 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 Australian women curators Electronic literature writers