MAKING CORE MEMORY
The software code for the Apollo missions was hand woven by women into "core memory ropes" that stored programs for the Apollo Guidance Computer. Using this moment of engineering history, we integrate thread and textiles with Arduino microcontrollers to create an interactive workshop where participants learn about—and experience first hand—the contributions of women to innovation and space-flight. Making Core Memory is a collaborative project from the University of Washington's Tactile and Tactical Design Lab, where I worked as a graduate researcher leading the historical and archival work on this project.
Our article “A Voice of Process: Re-Presencing the Gendered Labor of Apollo Innovation” was recently published in the journal Communication+1. Previously, “Making Core Memory: Design Inquiry into Gendered Legacies of Engineering and Craftwork” (PDF) was awarded Best Paper at the 2018 conference on Human Factors in Computing.
The Weaving Workshops
The Making Core Memory workshop engages public audiences in reimagining how technology is made. Participants are given a "patch kit" that contains a chipboard loom, yarn and plastic beads in place of the wire and ferrite cores used in core memory manufacturing. Together, we collaboratively enact the core memory weaving process—enlivening the work of the "Little Old Ladies" (as the Apollo Engineers called them) who put man on the moon.
You can access a free toolkit for hosting your own workshop at makingcorememory.org!
Making Core Memory was awarded “best of show” at the Making and Doing Exhibition at the 2019 conference for the Social Studies of the Sciences (4S). You can see a little bit about our project here (at the 1minute mark):
The Core Memory Quilt
The Making Core Memory Quilt is an interactive textile that plays & tweets historical audio about the women who made the hardware for the Apollo moon missions. Each square of the quilt contains a unique recording of Apollo engineers, which can be "unlocked" through placing one of the completed patches from the weaving workshop on the quilt. The Making Core Memory Quilt was sewn by master quilter, Helen Remick, using fabric and conductive thread.
The Making Core Memory quilt was featured in the exhibition Radical Fiber at Skidmore College’s Tang Teaching Museum. The exhibition explores “how artists continue to engage in scientific inquiry through fiber, and importantly, how the medium can be used to improve our world for the future.” Curated by Rebecca McNamara.
Previously, the Making Core Memory quilt was featured in the Center for Craft’s exhibition The Computer Pays Its Debt: Women, Textiles, and Technology, 1965-1985. The exhibition “tells the missing stories of women’s creative contributions to early computing while scrutinizing how corporations leveraged metaphors of craftwork and domesticity for commercial gain.” Curated by Kayleigh Perkov.