Nathalie Magnan

Nathalie Magnan (November 29, 1956 – October 15, 2016) was a media theoretician and activist, a cyber-feminist, and a film director.

She taught at both universities and art schools, and is known for initiating projects linking Internet activism and sailing with the Sailing for Geeks project.

She also co-organised the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in 1984.

She died at home of breast cancer.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Art degree at the University of Nanterre, Paris X, she continued her studies in the United States and obtained a Master of Fine Arts at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, where she met Catherine Lord, Mario Biagioli, Skuta Helgason and Lisa Bloom.

She obtained a Qualifying Exam at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she met Teresa de Lauretis, who was working in the Women Studies department. In History of Consciousness, she met James Clifford and Donna Haraway, who took her as her assistant.

She started her teaching career as lecturer at the University of California, Northridge and Chapman University in Orange, where she taught an introductory class on photography during the 1984–85 school year.

She was assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1986 to 1990, where she taught media studies, cultural studies and the history of photography.

Upon returning to France, she sought to share her American experiences in her teachings, films, publications and events that she organised and participated in.

University of Paris VIII.

In 1998 she became a full professor at the École nationale supérieure d'art in Dijon.

In 1999, she was invited to the Canalweb show Les Pénélopes, to talk about cyberfeminism.

In 2000, Isea, the international symposium on electronic arts, was organized in Paris.

Not a single woman was invited.

A hundred women met at Ensba on Nathalie Magnan's initiative and were welcomed by Mathilde Ferrer - together, they held an Isea counter-event.

Every woman had 5 minutes to talk about her work.

This is the first time that these women gained some public notoriety.

In the US, she took part in public access televisions and tactical media.

She made several movies with the collectives Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish TV, including The Gringo in Mañanaland.

Magnan is one of the French pioneers of cyberfeminism.

She created the website Cyberféminismes.org.

In 2000, she organised the ISEA off event in Paris.

The same year, she took part in the creation of a women's TV show for the local Aubervilliers television, called SixSex, as well as a show on the dangers of tampons on women.

In 2001, she was part of the Very Cyberfeminist International festival in Hamburg.

In 2002, she translated and published the Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway, which she then published in 2007.

She organized a presentation of women artists active in the digital world, Openmic cyberfem, at the Maison des Métallos, and organized Gender Changer Academy workshops for ZELIG: a week of workshops, demos, meetings, and debates on the subject of communication, networks, open source software and Internet activism.

She created the Chiennes de Garde website and managed this feminist online forum until June 21, 2003.

In 2007, Paul Devautour invited her to come teach at the École nationale supérieure d'art in Bourges, where she taught until 2012.

She established links and exchanges with Luang Prabang (Entr'écoles, 2008 and 2010) and with the University of California in Irvine (CRUde1 in the US and CRUde2 in France).

In Bourges, she created collaborations with Emmetrop and also with Bandits Mages.

Her teachings focus on the analysis and critique of media on a feminist, queer and postcolonial point of view.

More than transmitting knowledge, she wants to create a method, a trans-disciplinary process that leads to the conquest of autonomy.

A media theorist and activist, she published two books translated from English and German into French : La Vidéo : entre art et communication, followed by Connexions : arts, réseaux, médias, with Annick Bureaud.

She managed the French distribution lists Nettime and CEDAR, the coordination of all French art schools.

Nathalie Magnan took part in a number of events of all kind, related to several parts of her expertise.

In 2008, she organized the Femmes et Réseaux (Women and Networks) meeting in Paris with Isabelle Arvers and Anne Roquigny.

She talked about Feminism and Cyberfem at the Master of Advanced Studies of the Zurich University of the Arts in 2009, and in March 2010 in Paris.

One of her classes entitled, Genre, which she gave in association with Giovanna Zapperi, was thought of as a space for pedagogical innovations within which she organised a lecture series with C. Lord, Paul Preciado, Shu Lea Chang, Yann Beauvais, Patrick Cardon.... In 2012, she invited A-LI-CE6 (Claire Fristot) to give a VJing workshop.

On March 7–8, 2015, she was part of the Wikipedia Art+Feminism Editathon, in Paris.

On June 6, she talked about tactical media during Performing Opposition in Aubervilliers.