Kunsthalle Wien presents "Radical Software: Women, Art & Computing 1960–1991," a landmark exhibition foregrounding the pioneering role of women in early digital art. Organized with Mudam Luxembourg, the show brings together over one hundred works by fifty artists from European and U.S. collections, spanning painting, sculpture, installation, film, performance, and computer-generated works. The title references the 1970 magazine "Radical Software" by Beryl Korot, Phyllis Segura, and Ira Schneider, which envisioned decentralized access to information. The exhibition traces digital art from mainframe experiments in the 1960s through the microcomputer revolution, highlighting artists like Charlotte Johannesson, who traded a tapestry for an Apple II in 1978.
This exhibition matters because it is the first major survey of early digital art viewed through a feminist lens, restoring visibility to women whose contributions to computing and art have been historically sidelined. By framing digital art's origins through second-wave feminism and emphasizing artists' "misuse" of technology for absurd, critical, and political ends, the show challenges the rational, scientific narrative of computing. It reframes digital art history as a story of creative resistance and prescient engagement with technology, offering a crucial corrective to male-dominated accounts of the field.