Alternate re[ai]lity: Computer almanac circa 1890

In our museum, we like to say that one of our goals is for children to learn about the future by getting to know the past of computers and related technologies. Progress is sometimes so fast that some technologies become obsolete before there is a common time when it makes sense to store them in a museum. Later, we have a problem finding preserved items because “new technology” is often considered worthless and ubiquitous.

With that idea in mind, let’s imagine how much would have been preserved if computers and game consoles had appeared a long time ago, even over a century in the past?

That is the question that led us to launch an unusual, playful and visually provocative project with the help of AI tools to promote the real exhibition in our museum. “Alternate Re[ai]lity: Computer history circa 1890” is a social media project being published across the PEEK&POKE online accounts in the form of AI videos and images. It is a content series that creates a mock-up “silent video” chronicles – a fictional computer history almanac mimicking archive documentary footage – that reports on “innovations” of the 1890s, as if computers and gaming consoles existed 130 years ago.

The project will be ongoing for several weeks in July and August 2024 and will reimagine real exhibits of the PEEK&POKE museum such as first computers, gaming consoles, phones, and even space exploration tech, all in the form of entertaining content created with the latest AI tools like Midjourney, image-to-video tools (Runway, Pika, Luma) and AI music generator (Udio). Behind the project is a small Slovenian AI studio Digital Da Vincis.

Kirill Karnovich-Valua, Creative Director at Digital Da Vincis: “Retro-old photo-look has always been associated with museums and history. This easily recognizable sepia style can be seen in family portraits of the Victorian era, the black and white photos show us how the Eiffel Tower was being built, and the silent video chronicles take us back in time to the early 1900s. But time flies, and now computers, gaming consoles, first cell phones and even some Apple products are already part of history, and have their place at museum exhibitions. So we thought – “Why don’t we imagine computers and gaming in this aesthetic of first historic photos & silent-like movies?””

Davor Pasarić, PEEK&POKE co-founder: “With an educational and entertaining experience at the core of PEEK&POKE’s mission, we decided to promote the 2024 season by launching a surreal social media project. Through the creative powers of AI (but still curated by creative humans), the project imagines what computer history would look like if it had started over a century ago. We are grateful to the Slovenian studio Digital Da Vincis for helping us realize this campaign.”