Dyke Action Machine! or DAM! is a public art and activist duo made up of designer Carrie Moyer and photographer Sue Schaffner. DAM! gained notoriety in the 1990s for using commercial photography styling with lesbian imagery in public art.
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History
Sue Schaffner and Carrie Moyer formed Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!) in 1991 in New York City. The duo created radical feminist public art, putting images of lesbians into commercialized styles and settings. Together with groups like Guerilla Girls and Toxic Titties, DAM! resisted sexism and consumerism. DAM! specifically targeted what they called "lesbophobia", the marginalization of lesbians not only in favor of heterosexuality but also within LGBT circles, where Schaffner and Moyer saw the male homosexual as privileged. DAM! has been described as intentionally pluralistic, embracing many identities and issues.
With Schaffner's experience as a commercial photographer and Moyer's work as a designer and painter, the duo captured and created images reminiscent of commercial advertising but delivered messages that raised the profile of lesbians. This material was then placed where ads were typically seen, such as bus stops, telephone booths, and construction site barricades. DAM!'s method of presenting lesbian activist art in typically commercial landscapes creates an effect described by some as "slick subvertising" and "agit-prop". Schaffner and Moyer remained anonymous for eight years, signing their work only with Dyke Action Machine!. Among their influences for their work were Gran Fury, Barbara Kruger, and Fran Winant. The duo is mainly active in the New York City area, although their work has been shown internationally and they make some available to be downloaded and distributed by anyone.
The work of Dyke Action Machine! is held at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. It has been included in anthologies and encyclopedias of queer and lesbian art, where their work has been discussed alongside LGBT artist activists Chloe Atkins, Kay Shumack, Marion Moore, Jill Posener, the Australian Word of Mouth Collective. In 2000, Schaffner and Moyer won a Creative Capital award for visual arts to create Gynadome: A Separate Paradise.