<pclass="techfem">The cyber/technofeminist manifestos connect feminist thinking to technology, introducing feminist servers, cyborg figures, cyberwitches, or pleas for the glitch as cultural digital artefact. This collection, which is obviously incomplete, brings a diverse set of technofeminist documents together that are published between 1912 and 2019. The manifestos speak about very different concerns and questions, but they connect in terms of energy level. Urging to make a statement, ready to activate.
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An interesting note to mention: Karen Spärck Jones was an advocate for the position of women in computing. <em>“I’ve been trying to think a little bit—but it’s very dispiriting!—about how to try to get more women into computer science. On the whole, everybody who thinks about this is depressed, because we’re going backwards rather than forwards.”</em><sup><ahref="https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Karen_Sp%C3%A4rck_Jones#On_Getting_More_Women_into_Computer_Science">•</a></sup></p>
An interesting note to mention: Karen Spärck Jones was an advocate for the position of women in computing. <em>“I’ve been trying to think a little bit—but it’s very dispiriting!—about how to try to get more women into computer science. On the whole, everybody who thinks about this is depressed, because we’re going backwards rather than forwards.”</em>(https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Karen_Sp%C3%A4rck_Jones#On_Getting_More_Women_into_Computer_Science)</p>
<p>These two axes, the algorithm and the manifestos, interoperate. They support and strengthen eachother as the X and Y of this cross-reading tool. </p>
<p>The TF-IDF algorithm, while responding to a search request, creates cross-readings through the manifestos. It outputs a list of search results around the subject of search, creating a field of statements, questions and concerns around one single word. Meanwhile, the algorithm starts to interoperate with the manifesto as a format. Sensitive as it is for bulletpointed writing, repetition and unique words -- elements that are used a lot in these statement driven documents. The algorithm prioritizes higher contrastful language over academic writing, repetition over very diverse vocabularies and the use of unique words over the use of common ones.</p>
<p>See this cross-reading tool as an exercise in reading, across a field of technofeminist thinking and a tool for algorithmic sorting.</p>
<!-- <p>Reading the TF-IDF algorithm by itself only results in a technical understanding of this old artefact.</p> -->
<!-- <p>This algorithm thereby connects a discrete procedure (that of computing) to a very vivid and strong document format: the manifesto.</p> -->
