The Blather Museum of the Future

Blather has a job for you. We want you to make a virtual donation/suggestion for objects for a museum exhibition which will be shown 200 years from now. So, what would you donate?

Ok. Here’s the idea. You have been asked by a group of historians, to suggest one object for inclusion in a collection for an exhibition which will be put on display 200 years from now. The object can be anything you like, big or small, cheap or expensive.
To enter your object, tell us what it is, post a link to a picture of it (if you can find one)and most importantly, tell us why you think it should be included. There’s no right answer. There’s no wrong answer.

Examples
To give you an example, I asked this question of a group of teenagers some years ago. One of the girls suggested a bottle of hair-dye, because she believed (and hoped) that 200 years from now society would have evolved beyond the need for physical alteration of the body to attract partners.
A similiar question was asked in Germany some years ago and many suggested including the pill – due to the profound effect that it had on european and western society, most notably for women.

Consider
Another way of looking at this is to consider the follwing scenario that an archaeologist once put to me: 5000 years from now, archaeologists are excavating the ruins of an ancient city. in the course of their digging they uncover a small yellow figure, approximately ten centimeters in height. it’s dressed in a red upper body garment, a small blue garment covering the lower part of the body and it has a bizzare spiked hairstyle. not knowing what they have, they assign it the generic labelling ‘ritual object’.
What have they found? That’s right – that friendly little fellow in the picture above.
Current suggestions from the folks at P45:
Hack: “A 1980’s mobile phone. Because who, back then, knew the profound effect it would have on society? It was a simple start to an increasingly complicated journey. It all began as a device that enabled you to make telephone calls without wires but has evolved into a multi-media communications and information system. It invented a new language (Txting m8!) and changed the way people communicate forever. And who knows where it will lead to next? That’s for people in 200 years time to tell us, for sure they will have invented communications with the dead by then?”
magicbastarder: “a mate of mine has one of the original diamond rio MP3 players – heralded massive changes in the way the internet was used, and in music industry policies.”
funkey gibbon: “a football. Simple to understand and easy for even the poorest people to play, it can bring people together in a way more complicated and expensive sports can’t. Mankind needs to compete, this the perfect way for them to do so.”
shiny: “a staple remover. because in 200 years time staples and therefore staple removers will have become obsolete due to paperless communication, etc and I don’t think people will know what to make of it!”
fig: “a standard wall clock. I spend so much time looking at the damn thing.”

Donate!
So, what do you want to have placed in the Blather Museum of the Future? Your suggestions in a comment please!

damien

Damien DeBarra was born in the late 20th century and grew up in Dublin, Ireland. He now lives in London, England where he shares a house with four laptops, three bikes and a large collection of chairs.