London’s Digital Revolution exhibit


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I’m a fan of museums — their exhibits, their archives, their outreach all serve as a cornerstone to cultural preservation and education. America apparently agrees with that sentiment, as it was recently determined that the United States has more museums (35,000) than Starbucks (11,000) and McDonalds (14,000) restaurants combined.

From as far back as 2003, when Ryan Suenaga and I visited the Boston Museum of Science, I’ve toyed with the idea of a Juiced.GS article that marries these esteemed institutions with my favorite retrocomputer. Whether that story would’ve been simply an overview of the Apple II’s appearances and contexts in such institutions, or something more meaningful about the history of the Apple II, I’m unsure. The closest we’ve come to that pitch was Peter Neubauer’s December 2012 narrative of his experience at the newly opened Living Computer Museum.

If we ever do compile such an index, it won’t stay current for long, as new exhibits feature the Apple II regularly. The latest, having opened just last week, is Digital Revolution at London’s Barbican Centre, "a major new exhibition that explores the impact of technology on art over the past four decades", reports Aaron Souppouris for The Verge. Featured art forms include film, music, games, and more.

Pretty trippy, right? But in addition to the many interactive installation, various displays also let visitors walk the timeline of digital technology — including the Apple IIe.

Digital Revolution Installation At The Barbican Centre

A proud lineage. Photo copyrighted by the Verge.

It’s not a significant portion of the Digital Revolution, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s enough for modern art to acknowledge that it is where it is today thanks to inventions such as the Apple II.

Now that’s a good story.