2020 - Spiders, feminism, weaving and the web.
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Creelers Cottage.
It has been a while since my last essay-style post and while I tally this up primarily due to my complete inability to do anything other than procrastinate 90% of the time, I’ve also been working in tandem with my partner and a few other pals on a multimedia exhibition/zine… -
SPIDER FEMINISM - Spidey-sisters.
So a few months/years ago I was exploring one of my favourite resources for cyber/techno-feminist resources, The OBN, and I came across the strangest and yet so up-my-street article by Helene von Oldenburg titled ‘Spider Feminism’, in which von Oldenburg describes a “new field of scientific future research”… (debatable but… -
SPIDER FEMINISM - The Web of Life and white feminism.
Arachne, through her tapestry, is calling for a redistribution of power. She represents women’s struggle for equality and for social, political, economic and legal rights. She symbolises resistance to the dominant discourses of power and class that perpetuate oppression, violence, exploitation and patriarchy. But what about Athena? Athena is also… -
SPIDER FEMINISM - Arachne to arachnology via the web.
This is a three-part post, be warned.. Humans and spiders have a complicated relationship to say the least. As a child (ahem, and still now) I was terrified of spiders; the way they creeped, crawled, and seemed to have it in for me. As an adult, I have more of… -
Tablet Weaving: first(and last?) attempt.
I’ve been attempting to learn how to tablet weave, and I just can’t do it. Every time I give it another go all that has resulted is a lot of wasted thread (and the occasional tantrum). After my first attempt, I realised the importance of using perfectly square cards so… -
Women’s writing; women’s work. Myth, spinning, weaving, and, of course, science fiction.
“…the boundary between science fiction and social reality is an optical illusion”. (Haraway, A Cyborg Manifesto, 1985: 149) ‘Myth’ is widely used pejoratively to imply a story that is not objectively true, and the identification of a narrative as a myth can be imbued with politics; for example, there… -
Weaving in mythology.
When I weave, what cultural histories am I participating in; what collective identity am I reinforcing; what stories do I inscribe into my being and my weave; and how am I shaping a new narrative of women and weaving Traditionally, weaving has been a “feminine” practice, and although there are,… -
Online weaving simulator: Infinite Weft.
How cool is this! -
Weaving to Code, Coding to Weave.
“We knew that we could create a new conversation about tradition and technology, about recognizing activities that have historically empowered so many women and that are still doing it now, about the preservation of history from a different point of view, about storytelling. We knew that by braiding the relationship… -
Gifts for the goddesses.
As the name of this project might suggest, I have a particular interest in goddesses and mythology. This interest is most definitely due to my bond with my friend Connie, and also my partner, Danny, both of whom were my flatmates when I lived in Edinburgh, and both of whom… -
Renate Hiller - “On Handwork”
I recently came across this video on YouTube from 2010 of Renate Hiller talking about the importance and relevance of traditional handwork today. “[T]he use of the hands is vital for the human being, for having flexibility, dexterity. In a way, the entire human being is in the hands.” -
Weaving and technofeminism - an overview according to Sadie Plant.
“If weaving has played such a crucial role in the history of computing, it is also the key to one of the most extraordinary sites of woman-machine interface which short-circuits their prescribed relationship and persists regardless of what man effects and defines as the history of technology.” (Plant, 2000: 331-332)… -
Ariadne, process, progress, and none of the above.
It’s been a lot longer since my last post than I had anticipated when starting this project; I optimistically thought I would bang out a post every other day, a slight over-estimation of my productivity. That being said, I have planned many future posts, so stay tuned, and as an… -
Welcome!
So my mother bought me an inkle loom a few weeks ago, just as we were going into lockdown, with a hope that I would miraculously produce a Guanabana-style belt just like the ones she’d seen in Toast (bougie baby). She is an avid and talented knitter and yet, although…