Abstract

CORRAL GUILLE, Gustavo. From Natural History to Modern Biology: Machines, Robots and Flight Decks in the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, United Kingdom. Intervención (Méx. DF) [online]. 2017, vol.8, n.16, pp.5-16. ISSN 2007-249X.

This ESSAY provides an overview of the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, United Kingdom, between the late 1960s and early 1980s, in order to explore how it changed both its institutional identity as well as its exhibition policy during this period. It intends to demonstrate that, in order to alter its image, the museographic discourse of the nhm stopped focusing on its collection-that is, the natural history specimens-to instead concentrate on the visitors and pay particular attention to the new approach of contemporary biology. To this end, it is posed that Human Biology, the first exhibition of the New Exhibition Program (NEP), was designed in accordance with the reductionist tendencies that characterized contemporary science, structured around the information systems. Hence, through visual metaphors and interactive strategies, Human Biology became a production and legitimization space for a particular scientific point of view, which was very close to that exposed by the external advisers who collaborated in the specification of its museographic contents.

Keywords : Natural History Museum; London; science communication; visual metaphors; interactivity.

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