HERSTORY: Digital Innovations

Since the inception of this seminal oral history project, our goal has been to reveal
infrequently told stories of women active in the arts during the digital revolution from the 1970s through
the 1990s. Although cultural revolutions are rarely isolated, undeniable midwestern events gave rise
to artistic innovations that played a major role in the birth of New Media Arts. Social developments,
including the emergence of civic leadership in education and the arts, aligned with the merits of
Chicago’s women’s movement and shaped the milieu from which the intersecting narratives presented
in New Media Futures: The Rise of Women in the Digital Arts unfold. The University of Illinois and the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago provided a foundational framework for the Chicago arts
community that supported synergistic cultural environments in which the creativity and careers of the
women featured in this book could flourish.

From late 2008 through 2012, we recorded interviews of twenty-two women whose contributions
focused on 1985 as a pivotal point for a set of questions. We personally know many of these vibrant,
creative women, and in the process of editing the book we discovered many more. This selection
represents a breadth of generations and approaches that serve as exemplars from influential years in
the twentieth century’s digital revolution.