EXCERPT Arachne, the mythical weaver whose story we told in the opening pages of this book, embodies the idea of a technology that intertwines perfectly with she who produces it. Not only does Arachne weave the threads of her tapestry with incredible skill, producing complex structures from the mutual interaction of simple elements, she also transforms herself into a spider, blending herself and her loom into a single hybrid body that incarnates the indissoluble weave between mind, body, technology, and nature. Sigmund Freud, in his Introduction to Psychoanalysis in 1932, suggests that women, despite their general inability to participate actively in the development of human civilisation, have made at least one contribution to the history of technology…