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After ‘She loves it, she loves it not: women and technology’ Christine Tamblyn recently completed her second interactive project. ‘Mistaken identities’ is based on the life and work of ten women, each of whom has left her mark on history and has acquired an emblematic status, particularly within feminism. Tamblyn’s effort is to give renewed insight into the complexity of these women. Josephine Baker, Simone de Beauvoir, Catherine the Great, Colette, Marie Curie, Marlene Dietrich, Isadora Duncan, Frida Kahlo, Margaret Mead and Gertrude Stein have after all already been attributed a fixed identity. Frozen to their pedestals, they have lost part of their radicalness and effectiveness. The central ‘interface’ of this CD-Rom is a bookcase with six objects representing six sections; Portrait Gallery, Timeline, Scrapbook, TV Movies, Morphologies and Puzzle. By clicking on one of the objects, a section is activated and the viewer gets access from several angles to the life and work of these women, with a whole range of interactive choices. Using QuickTime films, (spoken) text, computer animations, music and photos, Tamblyn breathes new life into the women and challenges the viewer to take his/her own place among these ‘titans’. Tamblyn herself pops up now and then as if to prevent you losing yourself in these women’s stories. ‘Mistaken identities’ is also an educational project, but one in which all conventional strategies have been put aside.
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Jorinde Seijdel
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programming & grafisch ontwerp, Paul Tompkins, Photography Dore Bowen, Thanks to Florida International University
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