For young viewers of early Dr. Who, the most famous track created by The Radiophonic Workshop will always be inextricably linked with memories of peeking out at Cybermen from behind their sofa. The pulsing rhythms of Delia Derbyshire’s theme tune went on to represent the beginnings of The Workshop’s unique form of early electronica. This pioneering music studio had been set up by a group of BBC employees as demand had grown for innovative synthetic music and sounds for radio […]
Charlotte Connelly worked on the Information Age gallery and is now working on her PhD with the museum.
Charlotte Connelly, Content Developer, blogs about the IBM Simon, the first smartphone to go on public sale.
Dan Green, Content Developer, reflects on the incredible story of the Rugby Tuning Coil, one of the star objects of the Science Museum’s brand new Information Age gallery which opens in October. The aerial inductance coil from Rugby Radio Station will soon have a new home at the Science Museum – see it being installed in the video below. Measuring 6 metres high and resembling a series of giant spiders’ webs, this monumental coil is a powerful reminder of the invisible […]
Charlotte Connelly is a content developer on Information Age, an exciting new gallery about information and communication, opening in September 2014. This week over in the Information Age team we passed an exciting marker. Instead of counting the time to the gallery opening in years, for the first time we’ve slipped into counting in weeks and months. It seemed like a good opportunity to reflect on what we’ve done so far, and some of the interesting things we still have to […]
Charlotte Connelly is a Content Developer on Information Age, a new exhibition opening in 2014. She works on stories about mobile phones, radio and television. Diana McCormack and Esther Sharp are conservators based at the Science Museum’s stores at Wroughton. This week I’ve headed up to Manchester to talk about a tiny part of Information Age at the biggest ever history of science conference. Together with some other people from the Information Age team I’m running a special session about […]
Chloe Vince, volunteer on the Information Age project takes a look at the humble computer mouse, Douglas Englebart’s best-known contribution to modern computing. Since its invention in 1963, the computer mouse has become an iconic image of personal computing. It was designed and developed by visionary engineer Douglas Engelbart who recently passed away on 4th July 2013 at the age of 88. This early version of the computer mouse bears very little resemblance to those that we use today – […]
This blog post is writted by Chloe Vince, volunteer for Information Age. Information Age is a brand new communications gallery opening in 2014. “Joel, I’m calling you from a ‘real’ cellular telephone. A portable handheld telephone.” These words, spoken by Martin Cooper – a senior engineer at Motorola, to Joel Engel – a competing developer at the company Bell Labs, began the first ever conversation to be had on a mobile telephone. It was 40 years ago that Martin Cooper, […]
Last night the Science Museum announced exciting details about a new £16m communications gallery, Information Age, writes curator Charlotte Connelly
This article was written by Ellie West-Thomas, An Electronic Music Volunteer. As Christmas draws closer, how many of you have found yourselves in a shopping centre listening to the dulcet sounds of an instrumental version of ‘The Girl from Ipanema’? Whether we notice it or not, music is always around us. Music by Muzak is a company who scientifically produced to create background music for shopping centres, offices and even lifts. It has been scientifically proven that music effects you and […]
Phew..! Finally the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the resolution to last week’s incredibly dramatic cliff-hanger ending! Here’s the second part of our interview with electronic musician, circuit bender and all-round nice guy Andy Wheddon: Click here to listen to the podcast. Guest blog post from Robert Sommerlad, a musician and Science Museum research assistant.
Guest blog post from Robert Sommerlad, a musician and Science Museum research assistant. One of the museum’s many wonderful volunteers recently took a trip to Brighton in order to find out more about an object featured in our Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic Music exhibition. In an exhibition filled with many bizarre objects and unlikely musical instruments, the circuit bent Speak & Spell toy is certainly one of the most unusual and interesting items. This brightly coloured jumble of knobs, switches and buttons was […]
Today we have a treat for fans of our Oramics to Electronica: Revealing Histories of Electronic exhibition; a lovely little behind the scenes podcast about the Oramics machine! A B-Side to the main exhibition, if you will. Nick Street‘s documentary about the creation of the exhibition features many fascinating interviews with contemporary electronic musicians, colleagues of Daphne Oram, and the curators and conservators behind the exhibition. Bonus material from Nick’s interviews was used to create this podcast, which features Science Museum Conservator Dennis […]