By: Kavita Mistry
Research intern, Canada Science and Technology Museum
Exploring the Born-Digital: An Archaeological Approach to Collections Research
5 m
Apr 25, 2024
Media
Photo Credit
Kavita Mistry
Artifact Alley display at the Canada Science and Technology Museum demonstrating all the different technologies that can be found on the modern smartphone.
The development and adoption of computers and the subsequent digital revolution have helped people transform Canadian society and its scientific and technological ecosystem. While the material culture of science and technology artifacts can be preserved using established methods, museums have struggled to safeguard its born-digital components. To avoid the loss of Canada’s born-digital heritage, PhD candidate Kavita Mistry is helping Ingenium research how to document, recover, restore, preserve and access born-digital artifacts.
Do you ever think about smartphone applications, and wonder about the “pre-smartphone application” era?
In a time where technological innovation is evolving at an incredibly rapid rate, we often look past the origins of smartphone applications, and how they have evolved into these immaterial “cloud-based” programs that have become so embedded into our daily lives. But where do they come from, and why is this important?
At the Canada Science and Technology Museum, we are on a quest to rediscover the “ancient” software of computing technology, what some generations might recognize as the “Save” icon on computer documents, and what others might remember as the small synthetic objects that would contain software; floppy disks and CD-ROMs. At Ingenium, we call these materials “Born-Digital Artifacts”, which we have defined as the code, software, program or application that is used with computing technology to perform specific functions. These born-digital materials contribute significantly to Canada’s technological innovation and digital heritage, but there’s a huge problem in the cultural heritage sector - these born-digital materials are becoming lost to the sands of time causing us to enter into a “digital dark age”.
The Digital Dark Age and How to Stop It
Information and communication specialist Terry Kuny, describes the digital dark age as the loss of information of how born-digital materials were developed, how they functioned, and how they have evolved. We have become so accustomed to downloading software from “the cloud” that we have actually lost an entire sensory engagement with “ancient” born-digital materials – physically going into a store to browse and talk to people about which is the best software, picking up a floppy disk and a CD-ROM and thinking which is most compatible with your computer, and running the software on your computer and hearing that “whirring” sound as it loads. Oh, the nostalgia!
Photo Credit
Cédric Brosseau
Inspecting an Atari 400 Computer and Atari Basic Computer Language Cartridge in the Ingenium collection (artifacts 2002.0379.001 and 2002.0379.002).
But, we are not just losing that sensory engagement with born-digital materials, we are also losing the material objects themselves. Things like floppy disks and CD-ROMs are considered outdated compared to software that can be downloaded through the internet and online stores, and so we are seeing less and less of these objects to the point where some generations have never been exposed to software stored on physical materials.
At Ingenium, we want to bring back that sensory engagement with the “ancient” software of the early 1970s, understand the significance and the stories connected to these materials, and ultimately, combat the risks of a digital dark age. We want to preserve these born-digital materials and make them accessible for the future, but we need to know what is actually in our collection first.
An “Archaeological Excavation” of the Collection
I decided to approach this project as if it were an archaeological excavation because it required a systematic investigation of the past to the present through the study of material culture, and more so it just felt archaeological. The best part about this particular “excavation” was that it had all the glamourous adventures and discoveries comparable to those of Indiana Jones, but with a lot less dirt.
During my “excavation,” I was able to re-discover approximately 626 born-digital artifacts and programmable mediums that contain code, stored on physical objects such as floppy disks, CD-ROMs, cartridges, cassette tapes, magnetic tapes, and USB keys. Great! But what does this mean, and why are they in the collection? Well, like all archaeological excavations, context is everything, and by understanding more of the surroundings we can uncover the many mysterious secrets of history.
Image gallery
Photo Credit
Kavita Mistry
10S Slow Control Fork and Knife (Artifacts No. 2016.0143.001 and 2016.0143.003) on display in the Technology in Our Lives Exhibition at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
In search of context, I went digging for born-digital reliant artifacts, like computing technology from gaming devices to robots, that rely on anything from “ancient” software technology to smartphone applications in order to perform certain functions. This archaeological quest exposed many interconnected layers and made me realize just how important born-digital materials are in giving significance to computing technologies. Take for example the “Slow Control Fork.” Upon first look, it is a utensil we use to eat with, but when paired with the Slow Control Application on a smart phone this fork embodies a whole new meaning as a tool to monitor health and combat poor eating habits.
Photo Credit
Kavita Mistry
From Left to Right: Atari 400 computer with Atari Basic Computer Language Cartridge (Artifact No. 2002.0379.001 – 2002.0379.002), Samsung smartphone with applications on display screen.
By studying the born-digital artifacts and what technologies they were used on, we are actually mapping out an evolution of computing technology from early computer systems to our handheld smart devices. In this timeline of computing systems, we can see the structural changes, the “becoming one” of born-digital materials with these systems, and how human interaction and experience of born-digital materials from floppy disks to smartphone applications have changed over time.
Excelsior! Onwards and Upwards
While this is just the beginning of a larger digital preservation initiative at Ingenium, with many more discoveries to be made, this project is paving the way for further research and strategy development so as to mitigate the risks of that pesky “digital dark age.” As we investigate deeper into the collection to rediscover born-digital artifacts, we can start to understand each artifact's significance at Ingenium and their place in the history of Canada’s technological and digital innovation.
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Kavita Mistry
Kavita Mistry is a research intern at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. She is currently pursuing her PhD in the Public History program, and is completing her Curatorial Diploma at Carleton University. Her research discusses the ethical uses of digital technology in archaeological fieldwork and in museums.
