Motherboard

Motherboard is a sculptural installation inspired by the historical connections between weaving and computing, which explores the materiality and labor embedded in digital systems. Both weaving and programming rely on binary languages; in fact, the first programmable machine was a loom. By examining the entanglements between these practices, Motherboard challenges the persistent binary and hierarchical structures that often shape our world: science/art, masculine/feminine, mind/body, virtual/real, logic/creativity, innovation/tradition, left brain/right brain, technology/craft.

The installation is built from e-waste gathered from the San Francisco community, primarily ethernet cables and male-to-female pin connectors. These materials reflect on the physical infrastructures of the internet — moments of friction that once made online connection a deliberate and tactile act, alongside the gendered, binary logic embedded in the technologies we use. As wireless technologies remove many of these physical points of encounter, the installation serves as a reminder of the tangible infrastructure that sustains our digital systems.

Historically, textile and fiber craft work has been dismissed as “women’s work” and associated with domesticity, despite their foundational role in machine automation and the evolution of modern computing systems. Motherboard seeks to make visible the often unseen and overlooked labor of women at the heart of this entanglement. The first “computers” were women performing complex calculations by hand, the first computer programmers were women hand-wiring the massive machines, and the first computer memory cores were meticulously hand-woven by female workers. By highlighting the handmade, analog origins of our digital world, the installation invites its audience to reflect on the materiality, labor, and hidden histories of digital systems and challenges the perceived separation between physical and digital realms.