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Melinda Rackham

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Adjunct Research Professor, UniSA Creative, University of South Australia, University of South Australia

When the internet was young Melinda Rackham wove interactive tales of online intimacy and identity [1995], founding and producing the multidisciplinary -empyre- forum [2002-onwards] a vital critical platform for academics, artists, curators and writers. Melinda introduced audiences to diverse internet practices and emerging technologies as ACMI’s 1st Networked Art curator [2003]; developed engaging Art+Science programs for the Royal Institution of Australia; and presented Dreamworlds: Australian Moving Image on massive public screens in China during the Beijing Olympics. She led ANAT through expansive experimental programs in sound and mobile art practice, and has participated as an artist, curator and academic at many Conferences, Biennales, Film Festivals and events such as Ars Electronica, Documenta and ISEA.

Melinda’s prolific texts critique, explore and poetically intervene into the worlds of art, artists, feminisms, social justice, and environmental issues; winning awards for Writing in New Media at Adelaide Festival [2000] and the SALA National Art Writers Award [2018]. Recently Professor Rackham revisited the slimey low-res world of cyberfeminism for a series of essays commissioned as a pedagogical archive on VNS Matrix, Australia’s global Cyber supergroup. Her 3rd book CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008 [2021], is a timely exploration of embedded gender inequity in the artworld, co-authored with CoUNTess founder Elvis Richardson. Her earlier monograph Catherine Truman: Touching Distance [2106] examines the many facets of a jeweller’s career from the visceral precision of sculptural form to working with medical researchers.

Rackham’s Instagram based performative parodies of 30 contemporary Australian female artist’s works, #remakemistresses [2020], scrutinises museological exclusion of women. Living on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people, Melinda is currently writing an intergenerational tale of art, attachment & adoption, and investigating NFTs.

Experience

  • 2017–present
    Adjunct Research Professor, UniSA Creative
  • 2009–2011
    Adjunct Professor, RMIT (Media and Communications)
  • 2005–2009
    Director, Australian Network for Art and Tecnology
  • 2003–2004
    Networked Art Curator, ACMI Australian Centre for Moving Image

Education

  • 2004 
    UNSW, Art and Design, PhD (Virtual Worlds)
  • 1997 
    University of Wollongong, MA (Womens Studies)
  • 1989 
    UNSW, Art and Design, BA (Sculpture)

Publications

  • 2021
    Melinda Rackham, in Pandemic Exchange: How Artists Experience the COVID-19 Crisis - ed Josephine Bosma, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam
  • 2020
    Its Flattery Lies, in Force Fields: Art, Architecture and Audience , Kyneton Contemporary Art Triennial (KCAT). Kyneton,
  • 2019
    Manifesto, in Ciberfeminismo: De VNS Matrix a Laboria Cuboniks - Ed Remedios Zafra and Teresa López-Pellisa, Holobionte Ediciones, Barcleona
  • 2018
    Intimacy of Strangers, in Imprint Vol. 53, No. 3, , Print Council of Australia, Melbourne
  • 2017
    ADOPTED, with co-authors Rebecca Johnston, Diana Dunning and Sofie Gregory, Identity Rites Press, Adelaide
  • 2016
    Catherine Truman: Touching Distance, Wakefield Press, Adelaide

Professional Memberships

  • Guildhouse
  • National Association for the Visual Arts

Research Areas

  • Virtual Reality And Related Simulation (080111)
  • Communication Technology And Digital Media Studies (200102)
  • Feminist Theory (220306)
  • Art History (190102)