Joan Tuckenbrod
“I grew up in Chicago, and feminism in Chicago totally influenced me in pursuing a professional career. Learning about Jane Addams and her development of Hull-House in Chicago was inspirational as she was the main person in Chicago addressing social problems facing women and children, and implementing a plan to develop help and support for women.”
Oblique Wave, 1979. Courtesy of Joan Truckenbrod. From New Media Futures: The Rise of Women in the Digital Arts.
Joan Truckenbrod’s artwork mediates between digital technology and the resonance of nature. Developing algorithms and creating FORTRAN programs to make marks that embodied invisible phenomena in the natural world, she created series of plotter drawings and digital textiles. The Whitney Museum of American Art has acquired some of these drawings from 1975, and a textile from 1979 for their Digital Art Collection. These artworks were included in their exhibition “Programmed: Rules, Codes and Choreographies, 1965-2018”. This early artwork is also in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Textile Collection, Block Museum of Art, and the State of Illinois Art Museum. Truckenbrod’s artworks have been exhibited at the IBM Gallery in New York, and the Smithsonian Institution, and shown in solo exhibits in Paris, London, Wiesbaden, Berlin, Chicago, and Kansas City. Her books include The Paradoxical Object: Video Film Sculpture, (2012), Portfolio Collection: Joan Truckenbrod (2005), and Creative Computer Imaging in 1987. She has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is Professor Emeritus at SAIC’s Art and Technology Department.
Jane Addams (1860–1935), born in Cedarville, Illinois, was a pioneering American settlement activist and reformer, social worker, philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader in women’s suffrage. She was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1931. Her philosophies around women’s roles in society had international influence
Portrait photograph of Jane Addams seated at desk, holding pen, circa 1914. Published by Bain News Service. From Wikimedia Commons.