Melinda Rackham

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Melinda Rackham (she/they) lives and works on Kaurna Yerta. When the internet was young, she wove intimate interactive tales of networked life on the web and in Virtual Reality worlds, and founded the -empyre- platform for artists, academics, curators, collectors and writers.

As a curator she introduced networked and emerging technologies to new audiences at ACMI: commissioned art+science programs for the Royal Institution of Australia; and presented Dreamworlds: Australian Moving Image in China during the Beijing Olympics. Leading ANAT they championed experimental sound and mobile art practices; and participates in conferences, biennales and festivals such as Ars Electronica and ISEA.

Melinda’s texts poetically and critically intersect the worlds of art, artists, networks, feminisms, social justice and environmental issues, winning the Adelaide Festival Writing in New Media Award and the SALA National Art Writers Award. Major publications include Catherine Truman - Touching Distance examining the facets of a jeweller’s career; to journeying through the low-res worlds of cyberfeminism for VNS Matrix’s pedagogical archive.

Crossing genres during COVID, her Instagram based #remakemistresses parodied 30 contemporary Australian female artist’s works. Melinda’s third book Countess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008 (co-authored with Elvis Richardson) in 2023, explores the artworld’s embedded gender inequity, offering strategies for sustainable change.

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)

Contact Melinda for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration