• A person looks towards a pull down projector, where a film is being projected. The image shows a person in a full orange suit and hat.

    wtwf01-temra-pavlovic.jpg

    Visitor documentation. Susanne Altmann, When Technology Was Female film program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Photo: Temra Pavlović, courtesy of If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam.

  • Three people watch a film being projected on a wall of a hallway space. Two of them are sitting down, while the other stands up at the bottom of the stairs.

    wtwf02a-temra-pavlovic.jpg

    Visitor documentation. Susanne Altmann, When Technology Was Female film program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Photo: Temra Pavlović, courtesy of If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam.

  • A film is being projected on a screen. The image shows a head shot of a masculine-presenting person with a moustache. The image also appears partly reflected on a mirror to the left.

    wtwf03-temra-pavlovic.jpg

    Visitor documentation. Susanne Altmann, When Technology Was Female film program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Photo: Temra Pavlović, courtesy of If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam.

  • Dark space. Only the projection of a still from Věra Chytilová's film

    wtwf04a-temra-pavlovic.jpg

    Visitor documentation. Susanne Altmann, When Technology Was Female film program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Photo: Temra Pavlović, courtesy of If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam.

  • Dark space. Only the projection of a film is visible. The image shows a feminine-presenting person touching the head of another person.

    wtwf04b-temra-pavlovic.jpg

    Visitor documentation. Susanne Altmann, When Technology Was Female film program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Photo: Temra Pavlović, courtesy of If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam.

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    Selection. When Technology Was Female video program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Title slide graphic by Experimental Jetset and video editing by Julia Sokolnicka.

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    Selection. When Technology Was Female video program, Goethe-Institut, Amsterdam, January 2024. Title slide graphic by Experimental Jetset and video editing by Julia Sokolnicka.

  • wtwf-handout.pdf [pdf, 370 KB] 

  • Goethe-Institut event listing 

Conceived by art historian Susanne Altmann in conversation with Hoetger, When Technology Was Female was a one-day film installation that spanned all three floors of the Goethe House on the Herengracht in Amsterdam. The installation presented six constellations of film excerpts and fragments assembled together from across various geographical, temporal and aesthetic contexts, including well-known and lesser-known works such as: Aelita (1924, dir. Yakov Protazanov); Zemlya (1929, dir. Oleksandr Dovzhenko); Wascherinnen (1972, dir. Jürgen Böttcher); Panel Story, or Birth of a Community (1980, dir. Věra Chytilová); Getting to Know the Big Wide World (1979, dir. Kira Muratova); and Signale (1989, Erfurt Women Artists’ Group).

The When Technology Was Female screening program formed part of the commission When Technology Was Female with Susanne Altmann, which Hoetger led as part of the Edition IX - Bodies and Technologies biennial program (2022-2023) for If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam. It was realized on occasion of the launch of Altmann’s publication When Technology Was Female: Histories of Construction and Deconstruction, 1917–1989. Special thanks to Viola Karsten and the production crew at Goethe-Institut Amsterdam for their installation support.

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When Technology Was Female: Histories of Construction and Deconstruction, 1917–1989

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Studies in Character Development

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