This article was taken from the March 2012 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
What happens when current tech becomes obsolete? How will we remember it? By collecting and archiving today's innovative products and lab prototypes. That's what the Deutsches Museum in Munich -- the world's largest science and technology museum -- has been doing since 1903. On display are 30,000 artefacts, but lurking below the exhibition halls are another 70,000 items in 27,000m2 of archives.
This unseen collection is the result of what director general Wolfgang M Heckl calls "an educational mission to collect historic-cultural treasures". Photographer J. Scriba has captured this subterranean world. "It's eerie and bizarre," he says. "In these archives, I really felt that time is passing; drop by drop, item by item. It's just a matter of time until the iPad is sent there."
Images from Yesterday's Future by J. Scriba
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
