What a Wonderful World:
Optimism inside the Cabinet of Curiosities
Several years ago, I became fascinated with cabinets of curiosity. The Renaissance predecessor to modern day museums, these cabinets, sometimes entire rooms, were filled with a mish-mash of objects, both natural and artificial, that embodied the wonder of the world. (The German term for these collections, wunderkammer, literally means “chamber of wonders.”) Inside, you might find a mummy’s hand, a “unicorn’s horn,” exotic seashells from distant lands, odd insects pinned and cataloged, and possibly even a two-headed lizard in a jar of formaldehyde. As Tradescant the Elder, one of the most notable cabinet keepers in history, requested in a letter to the Secretary of the English Navy in 1625, this was a quest for “Any thing that is strange.”
Inspired by this celebration of science, art, and the strange, I found an old Chinese tea cabinet at a flea market and began to build my own wunderkammer. I quickly filled the shelves with items of the type I thought were “supposed” to be in any wunderkammer worth its weight in weirdness — antique medical instruments, a Balinese shadow puppet, a snake stuffed in a perpetual strike.
Things became more interesting though once the collection process became more organic and I added items that genuinely spoke to my personal sense of the curious: a primitive eye gouging weapon from Rarotonga; a resin model of a telerobotic insect outfitted with solar cells for wings; a Houdini automaton’s autograph; a 1/1 millionth scale model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, fabricated by engineers Ken Goldberg and Karl Böhringer using techniques borrowed from microscale manufacturing.
Now, this small cabinet in the corner of my office serves as a constant reminder for me that the world is filled with wonder, and curiosity is something to be cultivated at every opportunity. Indeed, we’re at our best when we’re curious. And the beauty of curiosity is that we’re all naturals. Curiosity is how babies learn. In fact, sparking someone’s curiosity, at any age, seems to be perfect pedagogy. And, as the professor says in The Day The Earth Stood Still, “It isn’t faith that makes good science…It’s curiosity.”
I wouldn’t dare suggest that there’s a Renaissance revival afoot, but I’m optimistic that the pendulum is swinging at least slightly back toward the heyday of natural history, citizen science, backyard astronomy, and other spirited intellectual pursuits. Recent museum exhibitions have explored the cabinets of curiosity as an organizational principle, including one dedicated to the appropriately odd juxtaposition of art and cryptozoology.
Many blogs, including the one I co-edit, have been described as virtual cabinets of curiosity — storehouses of unusual links, odd memes, fringe culture, and weird news. Nearly every major city has at least one carefully-curated “Olde Curiosity Shoppe” selling strange objets d’art and natural oddities packaged as Victorian chic. In fact, I was recently struck by the obviously wunderkammer-inspired display of mounted insects and red coral on sale at a mainstream home decor store in the mall. And in the ultimate evidence of a trend, reality TV has put its distorted lens on the subject with the show Oddities.
Underground or primetime though, I’m heartened by this appreciation of curiosity that, unbridled, is also fueling today’s passionate DIY movement. A growing number of ingenious individuals are fashioning robots in their garages, building backyard weather balloons, and doing DIY biotechnology.
On one hand, these makers are dissatisfied with off-the-shelf products. At a deeper level though, they’re driven by a daring inquisitiveness about what lies “under the hood” of today’s technology, how they can better what they buy (or build it from scratch), and what they can learn along the way. For these makers — in the tradition of crafters, tinkers, scientists, engineers, artisans, and hot rodders who came before — the process is the product.
I’m optimistic that in the coming few years, the DIY movement will reach not only widespread awareness but widespread participation. I’m optimistic that smart companies, instead of criminalizing hackers, will encourage these user-innovators and solicit their feedback to design better products. I’m optimistic that science education in the United States can be saved if the goal becomes wonder, and students are given the opportunity to learn by doing, not just by reading about what someone else has done.
When I watch a screwdriver-wielding maker eagerly voiding another warranty, I see a spark of the same childlike curiosity that fills a baby’s eyes as she first explores her world, optimistic that something wonderful lies ahead.
###
This essay previously appeared as an answer to Edge.org’s Annual Question and also in the book What Are You Optimistic About?: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better, edited by John Brockman.
