Cornelia Sollfrank is a net.artist herself. She has worked in and
around new media for many years now, as a performance artist mostly.
She worked with the group Innen, where she was one of five women
that at computerfairs would act as one of the many pr-groups.
Between these other groups of females, all dressed in the same uniform,
all the same appearance, they would hand out questionaires to the
mostly male audience, with questions like:" Could you provide for
yourself? How affectionate are you with your computer? Which of the
following qualities are, in your opinion, essential for a man?.."
She was asked to do a project in Hybrid Workspace in Kassel, and
she decided to invite many women to discuss cyberfeminism. This was
then to be the first Cyberfeminist International. For this she founded
the group OBN: Old Boys Network.                                                    
As an individual Cornelia Sollfrank has subverted the Hamburg
exhibition Extension. She created 350 different female
net.artist personalities, of which she managed, due to technical
obstacles, to only have 127 submit an artworkproposal for the
exhibition. Besides expanding her chances of winning a prize in the
contest with so many submissions, she managed to take the theme of
the exhibition very serious: using the internet as material and object.
The title of this net.art work was FEMALE EXTENSION.                               
                                                                                    
                                                                                   
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"The attitude of the artist towards their work in the net extends
from total rejection of art or a discussion about net.art, to on
the other hand a pragmatic denial of any questions or problems at hand.
Especially popular seems to be renouncing being an artist in public.
The main argument for this is the wish to take distance from the
traditional artcontext. This is born from the illusion, that one is able
to liberate oneself from all expectations concerning art. (....)
Most (net.artists) seem unaware that they did not invent this attitude,
but that it has a certain tradition in arthistory. (.....)
Generally this attitude always failed, and ended sooner or later with
a total integration in the artworld. This strategy therefore is very
questionable, unless of course it is intended as startegy towards success.
This is not the case however, so the compromises that are made, when
tempting offers come from the artworld, are too big. Money (too little)
and fame (a little more) lead the artist to enter his work into the
artmachinery then anyway. What is left then is an uncomfortable feeling,
a mixture of selfchosen unprofessionality, lazyness of thinking and
hypocrisy."                                                                         
                                                                                   
(from Telepolis, article by Cornelia Sollfrank, translated from German)
                                                                                   
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