1st Edition
Museums and the History of Computing Objects, Narratives and Practice
Museums and the History of Computing examines the critical role that cultural organizations, such as museums and galleries, play in shaping ‘digital heritage’: the cultural heritage surrounding computer technology.
Focusing on digital technologies as objects and practices that museums collect, exhibit, and preserve for the future, this book highlights how and why museums play a crucial role in preserving the rich heritage of the digital world, constructing powerful narratives that help make it relevant to the public. It demonstrates that the museum can be a powerful means of safeguarding and interpreting ephemeral and continually changing digital technology, offering new pathways for rethinking the very meaning of digital objects and practices in contemporary societies. It provides practices and strategies for the preservation and exhibition of computing artifacts and ways to accommodate and respond to narratives about histories of computing that circulate in the public arena. Bringing together leading museum and university researchers and practitioners, and mobilizing cross-cutting debates and approaches in areas such as museum studies, cultural heritage, history of technology, anthropology, and media studies, this book challenges us to think critically about what ‘digital’ is when examined not only as a tool but as a cultural object deserving of attention and a place within the museum.
Museums and the History of Computing is for museum studies students and researchers as well as museum practitioners – especially those with an interest in digital technology and heritage. It will be of interest to researchers and students interested in histories of computing and digital media and in digital media studies.
List of figures viii
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgments xvi
Introduction: museums and the history of computing 1
SIMONE NATALE
PART I
Lives narrated through computer history 11
1 Unseen connections: exhibiting the global stories of cellular telephony at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History 13
JOSHUA BELL
2 Lives on shelves: constructing histories of computer in the museum store 24
SIMONA CASONATO
Provocation no. 1: imparting the history of ‘intangible things’ 35
MAI SUGIMOTO
PART II
The life inscribed on computer technology 37
3 Restorations, replicas, and emulations in a museum of computing 39
MARTIN CAMPBELL-KELLY AND MARK PRIESTLEY
4 Social media enters the museum: collecting WeChat at the Victoria and Albert Museum 49
NATALIE KANE, CORINNA GARDNER, AND JUHEE PARK
Provocation no. 2: all of this belongs to us 59
ANDREA LIPPS
PART III
Living computing history collections 61
5 Mediators, media, and meaning: curating digital objects at the Science Museum 63
TILLY BLYTH AND RACHEL BOON
6 Unsettling the narrative: quantum computing in museum environments 74
PETRINA FOTI
Provocation no. 3: why is the computer different? 82
KIMON KERAMIDAS
PART IV
Lived practice of computing history 85
7 The CHM stack: experimentation for digital and computing heritage 87
DAVID C. BROCK, HANSEN HSU, DAG SPICER, AND MARC WEBER
8 Beyond point and click: calling out expediency in museums’ histories of computing 98
LISA McGERTY
Provocation no. 4: decolonizing computing histories in museums 108
LARA RATNARAJA
Index 111
Biography
Simone Natale is an associate professor at the University of Turin, Italy, and an editor of Media, Culture and Society. He is the author of Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Petrina Foti is a museologist and scholar focused on the rise of digital information and technology and the resulting impact on both museums and the wider world. She is the author of Collecting and Exhibiting Computer-based Technology: Curatorial Expertise at the Smithsonian Museums (Routledge, 2018).
Ross Parry is a professor of museum technology at the University of Leicester, and the inaugural Director of its Institute for Digital Culture. He is co-founder the UK’s Museum Data Service, and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Museums, Media and Communication (Routledge 2019).
