Festival: History

Maid in Cyberspace was the first international Web festival to take place in Montreal. Organized by Studio XX and funded by the Canada Council, the festival took place on May 31-June 1, 1997 at the Playwrights‘ Workshop. During the festival, Studio XX presented the works of twenty artists, including seven Canadian artists.

The works explored the technology proper to the WWW and the possibilities of this medium. Issues of feminism, questions of identity, sexuality, the uses of technology and the Web by women as well as precedents in the history of cyberfeminism were discussed. The public was invited to explore the works as well as theoretical texts presented on the festival site. The event received more than 150 visitors over two days and its Web site has been visited over 5,000 times since June 1997.

The festival attracted substantial media coverage and public interest, giving purpose to the existence of an annual Web festival in Montreal. The second edition - Maid in Cyberspace — Encore! took place from November 6 to 28, 1998 at the Belgo Building in downtown Montreal. Featured were eleven Web artists from the USA, Australia, England, Scotland and Estonia. Five of the artists were Canadian. Nancy Patterson (media artist), JR Carpenter, Pascale Trudel and Ingrid Hein (technical facilitator) presented conferences. Katherine Liberovskaya presented a forum on Russian Web art. More than 500 visitors participated.

In February 2000, the third Maid in CyberspaceWeb festival took place at the Cinémathèque québécoise, in the heart of downtown Montreal, it featured ten Web art works, four installations, net based performances and artists talks. Amongst the seventeen participating artists and theorists, twelve were Canadian. Furthermore, every night, the public could attend round tables made up of the presenting artists from Canada and the US. During the week, more than 600 people visited the Cinémathèque and more than 4800 virtual visitors navigated the festival’s Web site. In the weeks following the event, more than 2000 visitors continued to browse the site, thus demonstrating the interest and relevance of such an event.

From February 7 to 11 2001, the festival was once again held at the Cinémathèque québécoise. The theme was Mutant Identities and Cultures. Maid in Cyberspace 04 presented fourteen Web art works, a multimedia installation, a Web-Jam bringing together sound artists from Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal, three conferences, a digital sound piece, a workshop given by a local artist and an interactive Web site. Four Canadian artist-run centers collaborated with us by suggesting names of artists from their regions whose work well suited the theme of Mutant Identities and Cultures. During the week, over 400 people visited the exhibition space, and over 350 attended the conferences, the Web Jam and the closing night. Finally, our Web site recorded 350 000 hits during the week of the Festival and 700 000 during the month of February - a record we would never have even dreamed of!

For its 5th edition, Maid in Cyberspace looked at the theme: The Double, The Multiple, Contamination and Excesses of Cyberspace. The event took place from February 6th - 10th 2002, at the Société des Arts technologiques (SAT). For the first time and in collaboration with the Chambre Blanche, the festival travelled to Quebec City where a selection of its programming was presented February 9th and 10th 2002 at the Caserne.

Programming assembled thirteen Web artworks, three installations, a series of eight concerts/performances - of which three took place on-line - two conferences and one workshop. Artists from countries such as Quebec, Canada, Argentina, the United States and Australia converged upon Montreal and were visited by a virtual public of impressive numbers - more than 350,000 hits during the week of the festival, and more than 800,000 hits for the month of February 2002.