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Key Operators
Weaving and coding as languages of feminist historiography
September 7–November 24, 2024
Exhibition with Elsi Giauque, Johanna Gonschorek, Michèle Graf & Selina Grüter, Pati Hill, Charlotte Johannesson, Lotus L. Kang, Alison Knowles, Beryl Korot, James Tilly Matthews, Katrin Mayer, Johannes Porsch, Radical Software, Bea Schlingelhoff, Marilou Schultz, Johanna Schütz-Wolff, Iris Touliatou.
Program of events with Claire L. Evans, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sadie Plant, Johannes Porsch.
The exhibition and its accompanying program of events focus on the links between feminized labor, technological advancements, and their associated languages. The systems inscribed in weaving and coding serve as a point of departure for devising alternative ways of looking at gender and work. Key Operators brings together an intergenerational group of artists—encompassing newly conceived as well as historical works—that engage with the concept of weaving and its significance for technological developments, both metaphorically and structurally.
The technological histories of computing and textile weaving have been connected since the industrial revolutions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The pioneering mathematician Ada Lovelace occupies a special place within this interwoven history as one of the early figures to recognize the computational potential of the punch card system used in automated Jacquard looms, which was a physical medium of binary code: a hole was 1, a blank was 0. Nevertheless, the significant role that women and their work played in the development of computer technology often remains forgotten or sidelined. In this context, we must ask why weaving is still perceived as a “feminine” activity and coding as something “masculine”? As Sadie Plant observed in her landmark study Zeros + Ones (1997): “With ‘all the main avenues of life marked ‘male,’ and the female left to be female, and nothing else,’ men were the ones who could do anything. Women ... have functioned as ‘an ‘infrastructure,’ unrecognized as such by our society and our culture.’”
Following this thought, the project’s title is derived from a gendered division of labor: when photocopiers were introduced in offices in the late 1940s, only trained “key operators” were allowed to use them. Tasks associated with the machines were considered menial office work and typically assigned to women. Yet, the title also offers other readings: “key” as a central figure, emphasizing the role of women in both the establishment of weaving as an independent art form and in the development of computer technology; “key” as a computer key or a loom pedal. The artistic and theoretical positions in Key Operators employ weaving and coding as critical metaphors. The featured contributions act as narrative threads, traversing various contexts and intertwining diverse methods of storytelling in order to scout the peripheries of official historiography for its absences. In this sense, the loom and the computer are conceived as allies in the examination of history’s sidelines, which so often provide the conditions for its writing.
Schaufenster
The Schaufenster series continues on September 7 with the newly conceived video work Street Nuisance by Nicole-Antonia Spagnola. The video, which is inspired by Charles Babbage’s 1864 text of the same name, rehearses a series of outmoded archetypes and reprises the child busker character from the artist’s earlier works. Schaufenster is an onsite and online series simultaneously presenting works in the two permanently accessible spaces of the institution—the window display at the Hofgarten and the website.
Publishing
In the fall, the Kunstverein is holding two events on form(at)s of publishing: on October 17, publisher Anne Turyn will be in conversation, sharing insights and material from her archive related to the Top Stories press and other activities. The event is a collaboration with Portikus in Frankfurt. On October 26, Adam Gibbons, Eva Wilson, and Abbas Zahedi will host an open reading in the framework of their book presentation. The event marks the beginning of Kunstverein München’s co-publishing of the series “ ” (quotation mark quotation mark), which is edited by Gibbons and Wilson.
Writers Residency
The Writers Residency takes up the tradition of the town chronicler and offers a temporary space for writing. Established in 2020, the program is aimed at authors and critics, as well as artists whose practice is based on writing. The next resident from October through December 2024 is manuel arturo abreu. They are a non-disciplinary artist working with what is at hand, in a process of magical thinking with attention to the ritual aspects of aesthetics. The residency has previously hosted Laura McLean-Ferris, Erika Landström, Joshua Leon, and Sarah Messerschmidt, among others.
Director (Interim): Gloria Hasnay
Director (Parental Leave): Maurin Dietrich
Assistant Curator: Lucie Pia
Curatorial Project Assistant: Lea Vajda
For further information, please contact our press office or visit our website.
