I’ve always said that one day I’d wake up and theย Arduinoย would be in a museum. However, I’d sort of expected it to take a bit longer.
Back in 2004 the MoMAย did something fairly radical, they held a showย called Humble Masterpieces. In it theyย displayed elements of theย museum’s permanent design collectionโfrom Post-it notes, to paper clips, to Bic pensโthat normally would, perhaps, be somewhat overshadowed by the Picassos or the Pollocksย also held by the museum.
The design collection at the museum was begun in 1934, with the purchase of more than a hundred simple industrial objectsโsuch as springs and calipersโthat had been shown in the exhibition called Machine Artย earlier that year. Over the years the collection has been expanded and the MoMA now houses over 3,800 design objects in its collection, ranging from a helicopter to a microchip.
In 2011 the MoMA acquiredย Botanicalls and Little Bitsย for the permanentย collection. This fall they’re adding not just the Arduino, but also theย Ototo, the Makey Makey, the Colour Chaser and the DIY Gamer Kit.
As design curators, we have an instinctive response to designs we find compelling, and when that feeling survives the passing of time, we know weโre on to something worthwhile. We believe our new acquisitions will withstand that test. All promise to make a difference…
Like Botanicalls and Little Bits before them, the five new arrivals are well known, and well celebrated in the maker communityโthe Arduino especially is seen by many as one of the building blocks of the next industrial revolution.
The Arduino started off as a project to give artists access to embedded micro-processors for interaction design projects, but it has grown far beyond its humble beginnings. It allows rapid, cheap, prototyping for embedded systems. It turns what used to be fairly tough hardware problems into simpler software problems.
We all know what it feels like to master a skill previously thought completely outside our abilities, or to unlock new possibilities of experience and thought. Itโs exhilarating, life-changing, and (healthily) addictive, the same reason people keep coming back to see MoMAโs Pollocks and Picassos…
I think some thingsโlike the maker movement they representโcan beย levers that can help you move the world, and it looks like the MoMA agrees with me.
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