This practice-based research project in the field of contemporary art considers the relationship between craft, digital technology and ecology. The purpose of this research is to articulate under-recognised connections between these areas of study, and to explore how those connections might be made concretely visible in artworks. It draws upon the histories of computing and print culture, labour and media studies, adopting a material feminist methodology through which to engage with these subjects. This thesis has been produced with Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Studio as its industry partner.

The portfolio of artworks around which this project is centred comprise of three exhibitions in the UK between 2018 and 2019. These took place at David Dale Gallery, Glasgow, Bloc Project, Sheffield and Hospitalfield, Arbroath, and each presented environments in which a variety of contrasting elements were brought together. Envisaged as parts of an overarching system, the artworks that populate these environments act as metaphorical devices, bringing a series of cultural narratives into dialogue with one another. These metaphorical associations are explored using motifs; including the technological rationality of the computer mainframe, the ecological connotations of vegetal matter; technical processes linked to amateur handicraft, printmaking, computer-aided techniques; and materials signifying, amongst other things, second-wave feminist art practices, countercultural aesthetics and the creative economies.

The textual portion of the project comprises of a sequence of reflections on these artworks, placed alongside four chapters that each analyse a specific moment in the history of computing. Themes of these chapters include women’s roles in developing early computer mainframes, the etymological roots of the phrase ‘computer bug’, ideologically motivated arguments for the innate suitability of non-white labour to the manufacture of integrated circuitry, and the influence of countercultural thinking on contemporary digital culture. These concentrate on how different visions of feminised craft labour and the natural world were employed in this industry and shaped who worked with computers. A recurring element of these explorations is how gendered hierarchies have been maintained by altering the narratives attached to certain forms of work.

The mutability of these narratives is a common element that joins the text to the portfolio. Together they consider how traditional definitions of ‘women’s work’ become models for how we understand contemporary conditions of digital labour, as a site of simultaneous creative expression and exploitation.