Museums, technological imaginaries, and subjectivity in the future-tense

Thesis

This doctoral project examines two ‘Museums of the Future’ in Germany. These museums display current developments in science and technology alongside more speculative scenarios of the future – at home, work, or in the city – shaped by technological or ecological shifts. Through interactive, gamified activities and displays, these museums prompt the public with questions like: what future do you want, what do you choose? Situated in social theory’s long interest in the places and practices that forge collective beliefs and constitute subjectivities, this research seeks to understand how particular sociotechnical logics are reproduced through the institutionally, materially specific form of the museum and its relationship to the state and society. I ask, how does the didactic institution of the museum, acting in the future-tense, project sociotechnical imaginaries and how is the public expected to experience them?

In order to answer these questions, I look at two museums as case studies, the Futurium in Berlin, and Das Zukunftsmuseum in Nuremberg (the Future Museum), conducting ethnographic research to examine the symbolic-material projection of imaginaries. I show how visitors are rendered both present object and future subject in the museum; their intimate thoughts, bodies, and data animate gamified exhibits, while discursive prompts suggest how publics should change and adapt in order to access particular sociotechnical futures. I locate these museums as one place where we come to understand ourselves and others, individual and collective, in relation to sociotechnical orders built on forms of sensing, predicting, and bodily augmentation. In doing so, I respond to calls to research the affective, embodied sites of reproducing sociotechnical imaginaries in order to study how we encounter the state’s sociotechnical visions.

Authors: Salem, N

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-eyor0m1eo
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: state; technology; culture; ideology