Musée Bolo

Musée Bolo is a Swiss museum dedicated to the history of computing, digital culture, and electronic art located in Lausanne, Vaud. The institution traces developments from early mechanical calculators to contemporary software and interactive installations, engaging with figures and institutions across computing, art, and science such as Charles Babbage, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, IBM, and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Its collections inform research on technologies represented by items associated with ENIAC, UNIVAC, Apple Computer, Microsoft Corporation, and Xerox PARC.

History

The museum was founded by a group of researchers and collectors influenced by exhibitions at Computer History Museum, Science Museum, Technisches Museum Wien, Musée des Arts et Métiers, and curatorial practices from Museum of Modern Art and Tate Modern. Early acquisitions included artifacts linked to Konrad Zuse, John von Neumann, Claude Shannon, Norbert Wiener, Maurice Wilkes, and machines comparable to those at National Museum of Computing and Deutsches Museum. The founding team collaborated with École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, University of Lausanne, Swiss National Science Foundation, European Organization for Nuclear Research, and private donors from Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corporation, Oracle Corporation, and notable collectors such as Paul G. Allen. Over time the museum developed partnerships with cultural institutions including Centre Pompidou, Kunsthaus Zürich, Fondation Beyeler, and the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago), hosting traveling exhibits that referenced milestones like Apollo 11, ARPANET, Minitel, and the World Wide Web.

Collections and Exhibits

The collection spans mechanical calculating devices related to Blaise Pascal and Gottfried Leibniz, electromechanical systems associated with Herman Hollerith and Vannevar Bush, mid‑20th‑century computers connected to Howard Aiken, Grace Hopper, Jean Bartik, and mainframe manufacturers including IBM and Cray Research. It features personal computers from Apple II, Commodore 64, Amiga, and artifacts tied to Microsoft Windows, Linux, Unix, and influential software such as Emacs, TeX, Adobe Photoshop, and Mosaic. Exhibits showcase networking hardware referencing ARPANET, TCP/IP, Tim Berners-Lee, Berners-Lee's World Wide Web, and telecommunications devices linked to Bell Laboratories and AT&T. Media art and interactive works include pieces informed by artists and labs like John Maeda, Nam June Paik, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, MIT Media Lab, and Zentrum für Kunst und Medien. Temporary exhibits have featured themes relating to video game history with items tied to Nintendo, Atari, Sega, and notable designers such as Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima. The archive holds documents, software archives, and oral histories involving figures like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, Tim Berners-Lee, and scholars from Harvard University, Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and ETH Zurich.

Restoration and Conservation

Conservation programs apply techniques developed at institutions like Smithsonian Institution, Bibliothèque nationale de France, British Library, and Rijksmuseum to preserve hardware, firmware, and media. Restorers engage with legacy electronics associated with Vacuum tube era machines, transistor-based systems popularized by Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel, and printed circuit board stabilization used by museums such as Computer History Museum and Deutsches Museum. Software preservation efforts reference methods advocated by Library of Congress, European Digital Archive, and projects like Emulation as a Service while collaborating with academic groups at EPFL, CERN, University of Cambridge, and Imperial College London to reconstruct lost environments such as CP/M, MS-DOS, and early Unix variants. Conservation also involves provenance research touching collections from collectors connected to Paul Otlet, Vannevar Bush, Douglas Engelbart, and institutions including National Archives and Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Education and Public Programs

Educational programming aligns with partners like EPFL, University of Lausanne, Museum of Modern Art, ZKM, and local cultural festivals such as Montreux Jazz Festival and Festival de la Cité. The museum runs workshops on coding, digital preservation, and media art influenced by curricula at MIT Media Lab, Harvard University, École Polytechnique, and Stanford University. Public lectures have featured speakers connected to Tim Berners-Lee, Shafi Goldwasser, Whitfield Diffie, Ada Lovelace Day panels, and collaborations with organizations including ACM, IEEE Computer Society, Creative Commons, and Electronic Frontier Foundation. Outreach extends to schools across Vaud and regional networks linked to UNESCO initiatives on cultural heritage and digital literacy.

Organization and Administration

The museum operates under a curatorial and administrative structure similar to Smithsonian Institution satellite museums and European cultural organizations like Fondation Beyeler and Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts. Governance includes a board with representatives from EPFL, University of Lausanne, Swiss National Science Foundation, Swiss Federal Office of Culture, corporate partners such as IBM, Microsoft Corporation, Google, and private foundations including Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation. Funding mixes public grants from Canton of Vaud cultural programs, support from Swiss Confederation cultural funds, corporate sponsorships, and donations from collectors and alumni networks tied to EPFL and ETH Zurich. Conservation, curatorial, and education teams collaborate with international advisory boards composed of experts from Computer History Museum, Deutsches Museum, Centre Pompidou, and universities including Oxford University and University of California, Berkeley.

Category:Museums in Lausanne