Two cable samples, not obvious museum ‘heroes’, brownish

Jemimah Widdicombe

A bright orange and yellow sunset interspersed with grey clouds.
Clouds over Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park at sunset. Open AI CEO Sam Altman has spoken about AI as ‘magic intelligence in the sky’.

Introduction

Identified as ST 28747.1 and ST 28747.2, these Museums Victoria objects are two of the countless telegraph cables preserved indefinitely in collection stores around the world. Throughout history, communication networks have evolved, leaving behind the physical remnants of once-cutting-edge infrastructure. The telegraph was no different, and today’s artificial intelligence (AI) systems follow a similar trajectory — built on layers of extraction, labour and mythmaking. 

DOI

https://doi.org/10.24199/SVJY9790

Citation

Widdicombe, J. (2025). Two cable samples, not obvious museum ‘heroes’, brownish. PRISM, 1, 7–12. https://doi.org/10.24199/SVJY9790 

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