Investigating issues of territorialization, gender identity and social class at the intersection of culture, art and technology, “Status of Women” presents profiles of ten diverse women artists living in Los Angeles gleaned from the artist’s Facebook network. The title is a play on ideas, exploring how far women have come at this point in the 21st century—examining the actual condition of women in contemporary society—in relation to what women literally post on their Facebook “walls” as status messages.
Although social networking via the internet purports to be open and democratic, it also entails inherent constraints. In effect, with responses limited to a specific number of typed characters, one is enjoined to share one’s thoughts and feelings in language wherein expressive restrictions apply, by virtue of having to utilize only a certain number of words often addressed to a selective number of interlocutors. And this begs further reflections:
How does the content that women choose to post on Facebook index the current condition of women in contemporary society? With the Facebook page serving as a virtual “room of one’s own” for many women, is their engagement in social networking predicated on the sense (or semblance) of empowerment that it may afford, beyond the expectations of one’s social role? Such questions, as well as considerations of the differential levels of participation, types of interactions, communities, collaborations, and self-construction that women engage in via Facebook, remain intriguing concerns and are deserving of serious exploration.
Featured artists are: Amitis Motevalli, Erika E. Reynoso, Flora Kao, Linda Kunik, Marjan Vayghan, Marissa Mercardo, Michiko Yao, Raksha Parekh, Yong Soon Min and Zeal Harris.
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