Exhibitions

Exhibitions 2021

The museum's task is to take care of the Norwegian cultural heritage in technology, science, industry and medicine, and to convey the development of the subject areas with emphasis on the last 200 years. There are permanent exhibitions with objects from the collections and temporary exhibitions where the museum invites you to new, exciting and interactive encounters in the past and present.

In 2021, the opening of the new health and medicine history exhibition Life and death – the changing human being has contributed to an important renewal of the museum. At the same time, intensive work has been done on the new ICT exhibition I/O, which will open in 2022, and a new energy exhibition which is planned to follow in 2023.

The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology and the National Museum began a collaboration when the National Museum's art was in demand in the media due to delays in the construction project on the Vestbanen. It has been a goal that the museums' collections should complement each other, and that together we should reach new audience groups. The exhibitions Gerhard Munthe – adventuresome interiors and Sand in the machinery stem from this collaboration.

Life and death – man in change

Image of many small skeletons belonging to children.

Photo: Håkon Bergseth

The exhibition Life and Death officially opened on 24 August 2021. It explores key themes around birth and death, diagnoses and treatments through knowledge and expertise in various fields such as medicine, health and natural sciences. The exhibition is both contemporary and historical. The stories are often told based on the experiences of individuals, whether these are patients, therapists, relatives or others. It contains unique items from Rikshospitalet's collections and other donors. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the dead human body called Maren, which was probably found in one of Oslo's cholera cemeteries at the turn of the last century.

The exhibition contains two commissioned works. One is the sensory tunnel with sound art by Ulver by Tore Ylvisaker. The other is Goblet by Ane Graff. The exhibition also contains a teaching room with a kitchen for activities at weekends and holidays and with school classes.

The exhibition designer for the exhibition is Anne Schnettler. The interactive installations have been developed in collaboration with Logic Interactive.

Klima2+

Little boy in the middle of many cardboard tubes hanging from the ceiling.

Photo: Lars Opstad

The aim of the Klima2+ exhibition was to strengthen our visitors' involvement in perhaps the most important topic of our time, the climate crisis. Three central objects from the museum's collection were shown and put into context to bring out relevant knowledge: a machine loom, a supercomputer and a group of objects that shed light on the disease malaria. The exhibition space also included a conservation workshop with access to put the museum activities into a climate context. The exhibition also contained a section for art by Ulla Schildt, Ingrunn Myrland, Julie Henning, Lila Zotou, Bianca Hlywa and Antipodes café. The collaboration with artists, who are engaged in the environment and climate, opened the way to explore how artistic perspectives and sensitivity can mobilize our visitors in empathetic and unexpected ways. In addition, there has been a separate area for public activities.

The exhibition's architect has been Karin Knott. Klima2+ opened on 24 June 2020, and ran until 19 December 2021. The art intervention Mattering Oil was held in autumn 2021.

Gerhard Munthe – adventurous interiors

Exhibition room with many colorful pictures

Photo: Thomas B. Fjørtoft

The National Museum's traveling exhibition Gerhard Munthe – Adventurous Interiors was at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology from 28 May to 29 August . Munthe is considered our earliest industrial designer, and created some of his most significant works in the areas of interior and design. The colorful exhibition contained both original works and reproductions, and a loom gave visitors the opportunity to try their hand at weaving.

Sand in the machinery

Car that is almost completely crushed by a huge boulder

Photo: Håkon Berseth

The art exhibition Sand in the Machine was created in close collaboration between the National Museum and The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology . It opened on September 30 and consists of a total of 27 works by well-known contemporary artists, scattered around the museum as interventions in the exhibitions. In this way, unexpected encounters between art and technology are created, and the works become comments on the themes that the exhibitions address. Jimmie Durham's work Stone Top, a car with a large stone block on the flat roof, begins the exhibition and meets visitors already in the foyer. A special puzzle trail has been created that visitors can follow in search of the artworks . The exhibition runs until April 24 , 2022 .

The government quarter - a photo exhibition about an important quarter

Exhibition room with pictures of the government building

Photo: Håkon Bergseth

After the terrorist attack on the government quarter, the discussion about both the preservation of the old and the construction of the new government quarter has stalled. In that context, a photo exhibition was created with the museum's material from the area. The exhibition was based on the photographs taken by Teigen's photo atelier, probably the most important architecture photography company in Norway after the war. Truls Teigen, who was main photographer from the fifties, took pictures for Erling Viksjø's architectural office, which designed both the H and Y blocks in the government quarter, in all three construction stages. The exhibition included the museum's photographs from the quarter, Teigen's cameras and a film from the casting of the H block. The exhibition was opened in February 2020, by Oslo's mayor Marianne Borgen, and was taken down in April 2021.

NEW IN OUR EXHIBITIONS

The industrial model

Since The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology opened at Helsfyr in 1959, the Industrial Model has been an important part of the exhibition. It shows an ideal Norwegian industrial landscape with factories, power plants, transportation and natural resources from the 1950s . The public can start the train themselves and turn on the lights in the factory buildings . The model has undergone extensive restoration over the past two years, including cleaning, a new control system and, not least, a new artificial water surface in the model . The restoration has been carried out according to conservation standards, and has been carried out and financed by the museum's Friends' Association.

Photo: Håkon Berseth

Oda

Photo: Lars Opstad

Just before the summer holidays, the self-driving bus Oda rolled into the communications hall at Kjelsås. From 2019, the bus was used by Ruter on the route between Rådhusplassen and Vippetangen. It is rare that the museum has taken in such new vehicles. Oda points to future possibilities for public transport, while at the same time the bus can be linked to current topics such as climate challenges and artificial intelligence. The bus is on loan from Ruter for five years.

Sign outside The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology

Photo: Lars Opstad

CONTRIBUTIONS TO EXHIBITIONS AT OTHER MUSEUMS

The museum has several items that have been loaned to other museums for longer periods, such as Norway's first aircraft ( Start ) at the Norwegian Armed Forces' Flysamling Gardermoen, the Ekebergbanen's
first regular car at the Sporveismuseet and several cars at the Norwegian Road Museum . Among other things, the museum has lent the National Museum a Hasselblad camera and material by Grete Prytz Kittelsen, which will be exhibited in the new museum when it opens. In 2021, the museum has also contributed to exhibitions at other museums for shorter periods . The exhibition Hjemme hos – people with long-term mental illness , which was created by the National Medical Museum, was shown at the Randsfjord Museum . Among other things, objects were lent to the exhibition Industry from November 2020 to February 2021 at Trafo Kunsthall in Asker , a unique interference color negative made with the physicist Gabriel Lippmann 's method the Preus museum and a Edison shows films for the exhibition Filmbyen Haugesund at the Karmsund Folkemuseum at the Haugaland Museums.

PLANNED EXHIBITIONS 2022-2023

I/O

With the exhibition I/O The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology will develop the country's most important arena for information and communication technology past and present. It will be a historical exhibition and a dynamic arena for discussing and developing new knowledge and insight about the present and future of the ICT field. The exhibition is being developed in collaboration with the architectural firm Snøhetta and is scheduled to open in April 2022.

The exhibition will be dynamic and programmable, and give visitors the opportunity to react to and participate in stories told through the museum's collections from the history of telecommunications and computers. It ranges from telegraphs to artificial intelligence, with everything in between, such as radio, television, telephones, computers, robots and smart watches and much more. The technical development in this area affects physical and cultural infrastructure in fundamental ways. The exhibition's underlying and major question is what this means for individuals, society and culture. We want to discuss and explore this with the visitors through the exhibition, and concretely in a permanent discussion arena.

I/O deals with the history, present and future of the ICT field from a number of different angles. It is arranged so that the content is influenced through the users' feedback and reactions, input and new knowledge in the field. A comprehensive computer system uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to connect objects and stories with users' reactions and experiences. The title I/O signals that it is about input/output or one/zero, but also man/machine, freedom/coercion, individual/society, and more. In this sense, the exhibition directs attention to the slash that means or, but also and, and that it is the discussions rather than final truths about technology that are essential. Technology is neither good nor evil, but also never neutral.

Fundamental to I/O is that all objects can tell many stories. The objects are like things. And, what characterizes things is that they are unclear and that there can be different opinions about what they mean. A heavy calculator can make advanced calculations, but whether it is used to calculate oil extraction or climate forecasts, it gives very different stories. By giving the objects such degrees of freedom to tell, the exhibition can develop an infinite number of stories in the form of different themed tracks. Examples of themed tracks can be the internet, social media, climate, industry and much more.

This innovative concept allows for dynamism and for visitors and external professional communities and others to help influence the exhibition's content over time. Since all texts are digital and the entire exhibition is interconnected, others can be invited to create their own trails in the exhibition by linking objects together in a theme. In this way, I/O will take account of the rapid development in this field of technology and be a place for ongoing knowledge development. I/O will function as a form of forum where people are invited to discuss and influence the meaning of things. School classes, individuals, groups and researchers will all be welcome to shape and develop I/O.

The exhibition is 1,000 m2 and covers the entire fourth floor of the museum. This is the largest exhibition project since the museum opened in Kjelsås in 1986. The exhibition contains around 250 objects spread over over 60 showcases and podiums. Eight interactive installations are planned, an AI-generated dynamic "artwork" produced by I/O and one to two ambulatory borrowed or produced artworks. The exhibition has received support from Norid and Sparebankstiftelsen DNB.

Energy exhibition

Work on the new energy exhibition has started in 2021 and will continue for the next three years. Opening is set for November 2023. The aim of the project is to equip and renew the museum's and the science centre's exhibitions and installations within the theme of energy. Today's energy exhibitions and installations consist of two main parts: the Science Center's Energitivoli and the museum's classic Energy Exhibition which has been standing since 1989. The ambition is to unite these two in "the integrated model" where we place interactive installations into wider historical and social contexts in addition to the natural sciences. We want to create a new type of museum experience where the science centre's focus on interactivity and specialized installations is combined with the spatial and conceptual expressions of the classic museum exhibition. In our opinion, the topic of energy is a rare good opportunity to try out and further develop this method.

The energy theme is broad. Energy can be described in technical and scientific terms, but can also be related to a wider societal context. Turnover and use of energy must be understood in the light of political, social, economic and cultural conditions in the past and present. At the same time, it will be important to introduce perspectives that point towards the development of new energy sources in the future. Sustainable use and management of energy will be central. By virtue of its collection of objects, the museum has a particularly good starting point for describing the development and use of different forms of energy in Norway and the electrification of society both within industry and households up to the present day. This energy use from around the 19th century until today can be said to have followed two main tracks - one renewable and one fossil.

The exhibition is supported by Equinor. The research project Sustainable energy narratives, which is a collaboration between the museum and other museums and institutions in the Network for industrial and technological history, is supported by the Norwegian Cultural Council.