Starting with Ada Lovelace and finishing with The ADA project, we’ve charted the visionary women whose experimentations with machines have defined and redefined the boundaries of the music.

Scroll and click through to explore our interactive timeline above. To accompany the timeline we’ve picked out a few records to get you started from across the eras by way of an introduction. Some of the music was barely released commercially at the time it was made and is therefore best heard on retrospective compilations.

Recommended listening:

Clara Rockmore – Clara Rockmore’s Lost Theremin Album (Bridge Records, 2006) Buy

Louis & Bebe Barron – Forbidden Planet (Planet Records, 1976) Buy

Else Marie Pade – Et Glasperlespi (Decapo Records, 2001) Buy

Daphne Oram – Oramics (Paradigm Records, 2007) Buy

Delia Derbyshire – The Delian Mode (Silva Screen, 2014) Buy

Pauline Oliveros – Accordion & Voice (Lovely Music, 1082) Buy

Wendy Carlos – Switched On Bach (Columbia, 1968) Buy

Annette Peacock – I’m The One (RCA Victor, 1972) Buy

Suzanne Ciani – Seven Waves (Finnadar records, 1982) Buy

Various Artists – New Music For Electronic & Recorded Media (1750 Arch Records, 1977) Buy

Laurie Spiegel – The Expanding Universe (Filo, 1980) Buy

Laurie Anderson – Big Science (Warner Bros, 1982) Buy

Björk – Biophilia (One Little Indian, 2011) Buy

As complimentary reading to the timeline, we asked German techno queen and Ada Lovelace devotee Ada to pick her 10 favourite techno records from a wealth of female producers. Click HERE to read in full.

More from Machine Music Week:

Watch our short film on the first ever computer music compilation Cybernetic Serendipity Music

Listen to a Conrad Shawcross podcast on music and machines for his dancing robot installation The Ada Project

It’s a woman’s world: Ada’s top 10 techno records

Listen to the sound of the internet

Computer World: Why Cybernetic Serendipity Music is the most important and neglected compilation in electronic music

The synth that made the music: 10 artists whose sound was defined by the EMS VCS3