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The Museum of Lost Interactions
Given that this blog is generally devoted to cutting edge developments in the wonderful world of music discovery and experience, the above sepia-toned image may have you a little puzzled. However, from time to time I like to cover interesting musical interfaces from the past. This is one such example: an online guide to “forgotten communication and entertainment media” facilitated by the University of Dundee. I first encountered a reference to one of the exhibits in true viral style on a separate, supposedly unaffilitated, Quixoticals blog. The show’s curator, Graham Pullin, writes in introduction:
These nine exhibits were donated by a group studying Interactive Media Design, who lovingly restored each to working order. Their discoveries were made whilst researching examples of interaction design that pre-dated digital technology. They also uncovered archive film, photography and packaging which places each artefact in its historical context.
I know that everyone involved has been affected by the surprising similarities and profound differences between these and contemporary designs, and of how interchangeable technologies often are but how much more important social change can be. This experience should make these young interaction designers both more inventive and more reflective when they come to create the interactions of our future.
My favourite has to be the Acoustograph pictured above, which “in 1925, was a music downloading device well ahead of its time. The upper class city families that owned these devices would request a musical composition with the Morse key, down telegraph wire.” There’s something delightfully Borgesian about the whole endeavour. I doff my hat in admiration.
Link: The Museum of Lost Interactions
