“Computers.” Today, the meaning of the word seems unequivocal. Yet originally, it referred to the women who, in the 1950s, assisted astrophysicists through their calculations. Their first experimental lines of code became the ancestors of the computers we know today — compact, opaque machines.

Zoé Tullen retrieves the rare archival images of these women at the dawn of technological history, figures erased by the patriarchal narrative of technological progress. She scans the images, digitally reworks them, and then silkscreens them onto plexiglass. Mounted onto DIY electrical systems and backlit, the panels are surrounded by cables, laying bare their components and networks.

Bodies appear in action, suggesting the sensual, collective choreography that once connected these women to one another and to the machines they operated. Oscillating between the digital and the tactile, Motherlode evokes the physicality inherent to maintenance — a form of care expressed through caresses, palpations, and touch. A constellation of highly choreographed micro-gestures. (…)