News 455- News Minute Edition 10 - Interview with Sadie Plant

New Technologies of Opportunity– Recovering lost traditions (craft), discovering pockets of potential Minihan & Cox Article: Stitch’nBitch StitchnBitch groups set out to conquer the technology based ideals of current society, while knitting their way back to their grandmother’s era, chatting with friends. StitchnBitch is a new social and artistic movement with an alleged rejection of technology, although many aspects of StitchnBitch today seem to be technologically-dependent. The main purpose of this movement/various groups of women is to enable a more connectedness among females while ensuring the wellbeing and intimate relationships of women worldwide. With the existence of StitchnBitch groups serve as optimism among the suspected gender divide in technology today. As Wacjman states, less and less women are becoming a part of the engineering and technology fields, leading to an uproar of male dominance all over the world. A new era of women have come about through such groups as StitchnBitch, encapsulating technologies at their own speed/pace in traditional cyberfeminist ways. Minihan & Cox’s article outlines the growing “women-with-attitude” way of living and how this new perspective is present in computer culture. By reclaiming feminine crafts, women are able to become a part of Information Society. StitchnBitch requires members to read and process knitting patterns, a skill that has been linked to the same degree of difficulty as is computer logistics/binary code reading. StitchnBitch is more than just women coming together to discuss patterns and gossip daily (cybercafés, blogs, texting etc), it is a source of individual creativity outside the home and work where women can embrace technologies and crafts concurrently. The latter half of Minihan & Cox’s article focuses on outlining the history of crafts ( 19th and 20th century protests) and what feminine or gendered crafts such as knitting have been associated with in the past, ie. lower class, melancholy, utilitarian function, lowly pursuit etc. StitchnBitch possesses 5 themes: -resistance theme: protest movement using crafts as a tool for comments on gender and commodification of society and technology (new Arts and Crafts movement) -progressive theme; unique cyberfeminist thought of women expressing individual feelings and reflections in their own environments (pubs, blogs, cafes) -remedial theme: steering away from an individualistic information technology society towards a collective recreation of social connection -nostalgic theme: romantic return to the past compared to a conquering of the present (crafts have been thought of as the nostalgic response to art) -Ironic theme: returning to a past that never existed, satirically commenting on the present more than past Plant Article: The Future Looms Weaving Women and Cybernetics Plant’s article offers a history of computing that is factual, mythical, and which places women firmly within the stories that a society tells about its culture. The parallels between digital practices and the making of textiles is outlined along with many discussions regarding programming languages. "The weaving of complex designs demands far more than one pair of hands, and textiles production tends to be communal, sociable work allowing plenty of occasion for gossip and chat” (Plant, 1995). This quote encapsulates the main theme intertwined throughout Plant’s article. The link between collective behaviours in order to complete tasks (crafts) while socially communicating with other women providing a solid front against an allegedly male dominated society. After a detailed depiction of Ada Lovelace and her triumphs through social norms in the 19th century, Plant links weaving and knitting to the complexity of creating software and internalizing great lengths of information. In the 1940s, the term cybernetics was coined by Norbert Wiener implying control and communication between machine and animal (Plant, 1995, p. 9). Plant comments on Freud’s suggestion that women have done very little to develop civilization but they have contributed to weaving and plaiting, designating the driving force behind weaving as the absence of penis in a woman’s life. Plant continues on to analysis the impact that weaving has on women (a imitation of what nature has already developed), and outlines the continuing effect Ada Lovelace has had on programming language (USA has designated ADA as a prominent form of programming language today). Plant Article: -- Ada, Countess Lovelace -- Ada was Lord Byron's daughter, she collaborated with Charles Babbage, to invent the 'Analytical Engine' in 1843 (financial and health issues stopped the completion of the machine). The computer was later developed from this ‘analytical engine’ idea and Ada, with her love of psychics and mathematics, formed written software derived from translated texts. Although Ada held great potential as an inventor and creator, she was plag