# Digital artist Rhonda Holberton working to keep women in the picture > Source: > Published: 2026-07-04 13:30:59+00:00 **Getting your** [Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...“Motherboards,” an exhibition on display at the San Jose Museum of Art, has a number of thought-provoking pieces that explore the often-overlooked role women have played in technology. But one of the pieces that literally stands out — its placed in the middle of the gallery floor — is “Collateral Influences” by digital artist Rhonda Holberton, an associate professor of digital media at San Jose State. Holberton’s piece is a a 3D-printed representation of a plum tree in an aluminum frame, on which a digital replica of the tree’s branches are shown on a screen. At first it looks like an old-fashioned fluoroscope, until you notice something moving along the digital “branches.” They look like ants, but it is actually a representation of Ada Lovelace’s 1843 computer algorithm, Note G, made for Charles Babbage’s hypothetical “analytical engine” — and early computer that wasn’t built. “I was thinking about the way technology has shifted. The idea that there’s this digital signal that’s being represented as this organic phenomenon was perfect for this project,” Holberton said, drawing a line from missionaries planting orchards to the rise of tech companies into the valley in the 1970s where those orchards used to be. Holberton also has been working to save digital art — some of which was created in formats that are no longer readable by current technology — by “reauthoring” it into forms that can be preserved. “Female artists working with technology were disappearing from art history because of the challenges associated with exhibiting and preserving their work,” she said. “They’re being written out in art history and the story of technological development. And that’s the backbone of both the exhibition and the work that I produced for it.” “Motherboards,” which features the work of 16 artists, is on display through Jan. 10, 2027. But that wasn’t the end of Holberton’s good year. This spring, she was announced as one of five artists nationwide who was awarded a Knight Arts + Tech fellowship this year, an award she says is life-changing. One of the others, Miguel Novelo, is also an interdisciplinary artist and researcher at San Jose State who has a show, “Inframundo,” running at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art through Aug. 23. Novelo attended the San Francisco Art Institute and received his MFA from Stanford before Holberton recruited him to San Jose State. “I thought he would be great with our students,” she said. “The fact that he was the other awardee in San Jose felt so good.” **COMMEMORATING THE DECLARATION:** All the big brouhaha for the United States’ 250th birthday wrapped up on July 4, right? Not so fast. The Los Altos Daughters of the American Revolution have a special event planned for this Wednesday — July 8, which is the date in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was first read aloud. At 2:45 p.m. in Veterans Community Plaza, Los Altos and Los Altos Hill residents will commemorate that moment, joining cities in all 50 states, territories and Washington D.C. for a simultaneous reading. Los Altos Mayor Sally Meadows, Los Altos Hills Mayor Rajiv Bhateja and other local community leaders will each read a section of the Declaration of Independence. Attendees are invited to bring a flag or wear patriotic colors at the event on the corner of State and Main streets. **CULTURAL REUNION:** Lots of us have enjoyed Cirque du Soleil shows in San Jose over the years, but James Reber — founder of the San Jose Rep and a longtime San Jose event producer — had a recent reunion with the guy who made it happen. In 1990, Reber was producing a 17-day arts extravaganza called the New World Festival, and around that time the City of San Jose was approached by the Cirque du Soleil about potentially coming to the city on its next tour. City officials didn’t know what to make of it, so they sent Cirque’s guy, Louis Landry, to Reber, thinking maybe Cirque would be part of the festival. Of course, a Cirque production is a standalone venture, but Reber put him in front of the right people at City Hall to finally secure a deal a few months later for the show, “Nouvelle Expérience.” “The rest is history,” Reber said. “Cirque du Soleil has performed in San Jose steadily since that 1990 launch.” Reber and Landy lost touch but got in contact again about 15 years ago, and Reber was able to see him on his recent trip to Quebec City. “We had not seen each other for 35 years, but the friendship remains and it was great to re-connect after all these years,” he said. “We bonded during that 1990 effort to bring the Cirque to San Jose. **A READING CHAMPION**: I couldn’t let this week go by without acknowledging the retirement this week of San Jose resident Farrell Podgorsek. She was the librarian for 23 years at Horace Mann Elementary School in downtown San Jose and at Hacienda Science Magnet for a few years before that. I first met her not long after I took over this column in 2005 when she recruited me as one of the community leaders to take part in a Hispanic Heritage Month read-in at Horace Mann, and I’ve always thought of her as a champion of the written word. She noted that a part-time volunteer job turned into a career. In an email to her neighbors in Naglee Park, she said her biggest takeaway was that she knows she made a difference in the lives of her students by creating a space where they felt safe — whether they wanted to read in a quiet corner, use the Maker Space or even just hang out with their friends playing games. “The students that attended Horace Mann when I first arrived there are now adults — some married and with kids,” she said in an email to her neighbors in Naglee Park. “One of my early students has a Kindergarten kiddo at Horace Mann. Our new 4th grade teacher attended Horace Mann, and another former student works in our office.”