This project retraces the history of technology through a feminist lens, revealing the essential yet often invisible role of manual labor in shaping our digital world.
Digital technology, which today feels immaterial and omnipresent, is deeply rooted in manual labor and textile traditions. Choreography of Work is an installation that offers a feminist counter-mapping of technology’s history, uncovering the crucial yet often overlooked contributions of women to digital tools and their connections to textile production.
At the heart of the installation is a server rack, the metal cabinet typically used to house the computers that power our digital world. But this time, instead of wires and circuits, the rack holds videos of working hands: repetitive, precise gestures performed by two groups of workers—women in the electronics assembly industry and traditional hand weavers. Their movements form a silent choreography, linking the past of artisanal craftsmanship to the present of technological production.
Alongside these videos, a jacquard tapestry presents an alternative, non-linear timeline of technological history, weaving together forgotten threads of innovation. From German lacemakers to Navajo women weaving integrated circuits, the tapestry maps a different narrative, where the often-overlooked female workforce is acknowledged as a driving force of technological progress.
The project also raises a pressing question: if women’s manual labor has been an unseen force behind the digital revolution, what will happen in the age of AI and automation? The installation prompts reflection on labor precarization and the transformations ahead, urging the audience to rethink the future through a historical and critical lens.
Created in collaboration with EE Exclusives, Choreography of Work pays tribute to the hands that have woven the fabric of technology, restoring visibility and dignity to a labor force too often erased from history.