@kenshirriff At a textiles exhibit at the National...

@kenshirriff At a textiles exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa last weekend, I saw this piece by Navajo/Dine artist Marilou Schultz, who was contracted by Intel to weave a replica of the Pentium CPU in 1994.

Full transcript of the info card is in the Alt text.

It was intended for a publicity campaign in which the Silicon
Valley company proposed — not for the first time — affinities between Native American aesthetics and advanced technologies.

Photo of a woven wallhanging, mostly shades of browns and ochres, made of seemingly random vertical and horizontal lines, with a dotted border.

The info card beside it said:

MARILOU SCHULTZ

Navajo/Diné, b. 1954

Replica of a Chip 1994
wool

In 1994, the Intel Corporation commissioned Schultz to weave a replica of their Pentium microprocessor using the traditional techniques she learned as a child on the Navajo/Diné reservation. It was intended for a publicity campaign in which the Silicon Valley company proposed — not for the first time — affinities between Native American aesthetics and advanced technologies. Specifically, Intel aligned the expertise of the skilled textile makers with the dexterity of the Indigenous female workforce it planned to hire to assemble circuit boards in a factory newly constructed on Navajo/Diné land.

American Indian Science and Engineering Society

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