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.