This exhibit gave me a lot of mixed feelings.
It showed a progression through time— objects created by humans and our relationships with these objects. Words and their definitions associated with the object- an emotion or purpose for it. Our intentions, our desires, sometimes consequences we had not foreseen.
I stood in front of the atomic bomb we (America) dropped on Hiroshima and almost came to tears. I specified “America” in parenthesis but upon writing it, I realized I could have left that out and simply said “us”—humanity. Surely it was a collective fault of humankind that we allowed such a monstrosity to occur. I couldn’t help but notice that toward the most recent chapter of humankind that the objects and associations seemed negative… World War II, addiction to smartphones…
And then, there were the absolute newest innovations. 3D printing, virtual reality, the manufacture of artificial organs. These things carried no sentiment in their definition. As someone involved in virtual reality, I read every day how the technology could be used for good, used for bad…
Just as any other object in the exhibit could have carried a different definition if we had used it in another way- it is up to us to define how these new technologies will impact our species.
I suppose- it is our destiny to determine how they will define us.