One liner
From Renaissance alchemy to machine learning, this essay traces a hidden lineage of cyberfeminist secrecy.
Description
This essay develops a theory of cyberspace as a domain structured by secrecy, drawing on cyberfeminism, science fiction, and the history of occult and scientific knowledge. Inspired by Liu Cixin’s “dark forest” hypothesis, it proposes that both physical and digital environments are governed by a fundamental logic of concealment, where visibility exposes subjects to danger and annihilation.
Reframing cyberfeminism as a form of strategic warfare, the essay traces an “ancestral” lineage of secret-keeping practices, from early modern women’s networks of alchemical and medicinal knowledge to contemporary data practices. Figures such as Caterina Sforza exemplify an alternative scientific tradition in which knowledge circulates through coded exchanges, invisible ink, and informal networks rather than institutionalized systems.
This genealogy is extended into the present, where data, algorithms, and machine learning systems operate within similarly opaque structures. The essay argues that contemporary technological systems demand new forms of secrecy and obfuscation.
Written for Yvette Granata’s exhibition #d8e0ea: post-cyberfeminist datum at the Squeaky Wheel, 2018.
Links
Reference
Konior, Bogna. Ancestral Cyberspace: On the Technics of Secrecy.” Exhibition text for #d8e0ea, curated by Ekrem Serdar, Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center, Buffalo, NY, 2018. Unpublished online; PDF in author’s archive.