Hook-Up

1: a state of cooperation or 2: 3: alliance an assembly or connection of components into a circuit, machine, or system a device for conveying substances or information from a source to a user1

14.00–18.00

Michelle Howard Eva Sommeregger

7 CMT

CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY

What direction would technology have taken if the skills that are normally attributed to women and other anomalies2 were given the attention they deserve?

Anthropologists are increasingly critical of their own biases and more receptive to theories that challenge heretofore established dogmas. We now know that prehistoric diets contained much more grain than meat, and that our first tool was not a weapon, but a woven carrier bag. So then, we need no longer be defined by a grunting lone individual bashing a bone, his sedentary group cowed into submission as per Kubrick’s famous scene3 , but rather by a sociable collective – gathering edible, beautiful and useless things to share, enjoy and construct together while telling stories and moving from place to place.

In Kubrick’s scene, the aggressive bone bashing led to lone astronauts in satellites above the Earth monitoring the aggressive behaviour below. Where could we have been led if technology had taken the path of the carrier bag? The path of the line – walking, weaving, observing, storytelling, singing, drawing and writing all proceed along lines4 . Lines can be interrupted, but they all have the potential to reconnect, interweave and eventually become endless.

We will begin with mathematics and research into hyperbolic geometry, which even now is difficult to represent using standard technologies like computing. We will use the ancient and overlooked technology of crochet, following a method developed by the mathematician Daina Tamina in 1997, and used by the twins Margaret and Christine Wertheim to construct models of coral reefs. While getting our hooks into our alternative homemade yarns, we will also observe the workings of that complex process of coordination between the yarn, the hook, the brain, the hands, the eyes and the upper torso, by hooking up to a bespoke machine that we will construct together.

1 Adapted from various dictionaries. 2 “Women and other anomalies” – a term we use to describe those whose bodies, needs and skills are generally ignored. 3 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968 by Stanley Kubrick – from bone to satellite scene. 4 From Lines: A Brief History by Tim Ingold, Routledge, London 2016