Code  and  Power:  Gender,  Eugenics,  Tabula7on  

ENIAC  (Electronic  Numerical  Integrator  And  Computer)  

•  Financed  by  the  United  States  Army  during  World  War  II.      

•  Construc7on  began  in  1943,  comple7on  was  announced  publicly  in  1946.  

•  First  general  purpose  electronic  computer,  which  through  programming,  would  generate  ar7llery  tables.  

•  The  women  programmers,  previously  unaccredited,  were  inducted  into  the  Women  in  Technology  Interna7onal  Hall  of  Fame  in  1997:  Kay  McNulty,  BeSy  Jennings,  BeSy  Snyder,  Marlyn  Wescoff,  Fran  Bilas  and  Ruth  Lichterman.”  

J.  S.  Light-­‐  When  Computers  Were  Women  

 “Jennifer  S.  Light  is  Associate  Professor  of  Communica7on  Studies,  History,  and  Sociology  and  a  Faculty  Associate  at  the  Ins7tute  for  Policy  Research  at  Northwestern  University.  Dr.  Light's  research  inves7gates  the  work  of  technical  experts  in  the  poli7cal  process,  with  special  interest  in  these  figures'  influences  on  US  urban  history.”      h.p://www.communica6on.northwestern.edu/faculty/?PID=JenniferLight  

ENIAC  

Jeff  Koons  

E.  Black-­‐  IBM  and  the  Holocaust  

 “Edwin  Black  is  probably  best  known  for  IBM  and  the  Holocaust,  an  interna7onal  bestseller,  published  in  2001,  documen7ng  the  previously  unknown  twelve-­‐year  strategic  rela7onship  between  IBM  and  Hitler's  Third  Reich.  IBM  developed  custom-­‐made  data  processing  programs,  using  punch  cards,  to  organize  and  accelerate  all  six  phases  of  the  Holocaust,  from  iden7fica7on,  expulsion  and  confisca7on  to  gheSoiza7on,  deporta7on  and  extermina7on.”        h.p://edwinblack.com/index.php?page=10176  

“See  everything  with  Hollerith  punch  cards.”  

p.104  

C.  Haynes-­‐  Caus6c  Code  

     “Cynthia  Haynes  is  Director  of  First-­‐Year  Composi7on  and  Associate  Professor  of  English  at  Clemson  University.  Her  research  interests  are  rhetoric,  composi7on,  mul7modal  pedagogy,  virtual  worlds,  cri7cal  theory,  computer  games  studies,  serious  design,  and  the  rhetoric  of  war  and  terrorism.”  

     h.p://clemson.academia.edu/CynthiaHaynes  

Haynes  ques7ons  our  role,    and  in  turn  we  are  asking  “How  might  we,  as  teachers  of  art  and  wri9ng  inscrip9on,  con9nually  poli9cize  these  technologies  for  ourselves  and  students?”  

Some  say  that  all  art  is  poli7cal,  and  therefore  all  art  educa7on  is  

poli7cal.    Art  Educator  Kerry  Freedman  states  that  art  “must  be  presented  as  a  social  statement,  in  its  social  context,  from  a  social  perspec9ve.”    I  see  this  as  inclusive  of  poli7cs,  and  reflec7ve  of  the  fact  that  whether  we  poli7cize  the  material  that  we  share  with  our  students,  or  aSempt  to  ignore  the  poli7cs,  we  are  taking  stances  and  contribu7ng  to  our  students  understandings.      We  have  a  responsibility  to  recognize  this,  and  we  are  seeing  that  this  applies  across  the  board.