Mindy Seu (born 1991) is an American designer, researcher and technologist whose work focuses on public engagement with digital archives. She is best known for her '' Cyberfeminism Index'' project and publications, and is currently on the faculty at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

's Design Media Arts Department.

Early life and education

Seu grew up in

Orange County, California Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population ...

, where her parents ran a flower shop after immigrating from

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. She graduated from the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

with a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

in Design Media Arts in 2013 and later graduated from the

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urba ...

with an M.Des in 2019.

Career

After graduating from UCLA, Seu worked at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

's Design Studio, as well as the design studio 2x4 on the Interactive Media team. She also taught at the

California College of the Arts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened a second campus in ...

, and published her own archival projects, including the web-based archive of Avant Garde Magazine and a digitization of

Emmett Williams Emmett Williams (4 April 1925 – 14 February 2007) was an American poet and visual artist. He was married to British visual artist Ann Noël. Williams was born in Greenville, South Carolina, grew up in Virginia, and lived in Europe from 1 ...

' 1968 concrete poem ''Sweethearts''. From 2017 to 2018, Seu published the web archives for

Eros Eros (, ; ) is the Greek god of love and sex. The Romans referred to him as Cupid or Amor. In the earliest account, he is a primordial god, while in later accounts he is the child of Aphrodite. He is usually presented as a handsome young ma ...

and

Fact A fact is a truth, true data, datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to Fact-checking, check facts. Science, Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by ...

magazines, completing the digitization of

Ralph Ginzburg Ralph Ginzburg (October 28, 1929 – July 6, 2006) was an American editor, publisher, journalist, and photographer. He was best known for publishing books and magazines on erotica and art and for his conviction in 1963 for violating federal obsc ...

and

Herb Lubalin Herbert F. Lubalin (; March 17, 1918 – May 24, 1981) was an American graphic designer. He collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg on three of Ginzburg's magazines: ''Eros'', ''Fact'', and ''Avant Garde''. Biography Herb Lubalin was born March 17 ...

's iconic publications. In 2018, Seu also became a fellow at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

and Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for the Internet & Society. Starting in 2019, she began work on an archive of

cyberfeminism Cyberfeminism is a feminist approach which foregrounds the relationship between cyberspace, the Internet, and technology. It can be used to refer to a philosophy, art practices, methodologies or community. The term was coined in the early 1990s to ...

, which later received the Design Studies Thesis Prize from

Harvard University Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urban ...

. Seu's Cyberfeminism Catalog project began as a

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...

, a medium she often employs for its legibility and longevity, and was supported by

Rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ( ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and Shoot (botany), shoots from its Node (botany), nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from ...

and a grant from the

Graham Foundation The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts is a 501(c)3 non-profit that "fosters the development and exchange of diverse and challenging ideas about architecture and its role in the arts, culture, and society. The Graham realize ...

. The project was exhibited virtually through the

New Museum The New Museum of Contemporary Art is a museum at 235 Bowery, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-nam ...

in 2020 and ultimately published as a 700-page print book, ''Cyberfeminism Index,'' in January 2023. ''Cyberfeminism Index'' featured contributions from academics and collectives including

VNS Matrix VNS Matrix was an artist collective founded in Adelaide, Australia, in 1991, by Josephine Starrs, Julianne Pierce, Francesca da Rimini (artist), Francesca da Rimini and Virginia Barratt. Their work included installations, events, and posters dist ...

Donna Haraway Donna Jeanne Haraway (born September 6, 1944) is an American professor emerita in the history of consciousness and feminist studies departments at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a prominent scholar in the field of science and te ...

Legacy Russell Legacy Russell is an American curator, writer, and author of ''Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto'', published by Verso Books in 2020. In 2021, the performance and experimental art institution The Kitchen announced Russell as the organization's next e ...

Sadie Plant Sadie Plant (born Sarah Jane Plant; 16 March 1964) is a British philosopher, cultural theorist, and author. She is best known for her work in feminism, particularly cyberfeminism. Plant's work is primarily concerned with the impacts of techno ...

, and the

Old Boys Network The Old Boys Network was the first international Cyberfeminist alliance. It was founded in 1997 in Berlin and remained active until 2001. The group was founded by Susanne Ackers, Julianne Pierce, Valentina Djordjevic, Ellen Nonnenmacher and C ...

. In 2022, Seu received a MacDowell Fellowship. She has previously served as an assistant professor at

Rutgers Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College and was aff ...

Mason Gross School of the Arts Mason Gross School of the Arts ("Mason Gross" or "MGSA") is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Mason Gross offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in art, design, dance, filmmaking, music, and theater. Ma ...

, and as a critic at

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Master of Fine Arts, Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in g ...

. She is currently serving as an associate professor at the

Design Media Arts Department. She is also curating an exhibition titled ''Cantando Bajito: Chorus'' at the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

Gallery and developing a series of lecture performance pieces titled ''A Sexual History of the Internet'', in collaboration with Julio Correa.

Selected works

*Sweethearts (2013) *Avant Garde Archive (2014) *Eros Archive (2017) *Fact Archive (2018) *''Cyberfeminism Catalog: 1990–2020'' (2019–) *''Cyberfeminism Index'' (2023)

References

External links

Avant Garde, Eros and Fact Magazine archives

Cyberfeminist Index
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seu, Mindy American graphic designers American women graphic designers Interface designers Living people University of California, Los Angeles alumni Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni 1991 births Yale School of Art faculty Berkman Fellows MacDowell Colony fellows American people of South Korean descent 21st-century American women academics