Australia’s newest museum will be launched over the weekend by a United Nations ambassador looking more like a science fiction film star than a diplomat.
Sophia, a robot which was appointed as the first non-human to be given a United Nations title when she was appointed innovation ambassador to the UN’s Development Program, arrived in Australia this week to launch the new National Communication Museum.
The humanoid robot also has the distinction of being the first non-human to receive legal personhood after the Saudi Arabian government granted her citizenship in 2017. Her creator, the Hong-Kong based company Hanson Robotics, said at the time she would use the position to advocate for women’s rights in her adopted country.
Sophia will be on hand as host over the weekend to guide the museum’s first visitors through its exhibitions, which range from nostalgic collections of long-retired communication devices to glimpses of the promised technology of the future.
Sophia will be switched to a completely unscripted mode “so audiences can get up close and personal and ask her questions”, the museum’s co-chief executive and artistic director, Dr Emily Siddons, told the Guardian.
“It’s really an opportunity that I don’t think many people have had in Australia, to actually meet a humanoid.”
The museum, fittingly located in a refurbished 1930s telephone exchange in the inner Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, was given seed funding from Telstra, which over decades had amassed an extensive collection of communication paraphernalia deemed to be of cultural significance to Australia’s history.
Although Telstra is the museum’s foundation partner, it operates as an “agnostic” independent charity relying on public entry fees for income.
Visitors will be able to try using a rotary dial telephone and learn about how it was once possible to dial 1194 to be told what the time is. The mechanical “speaking clock”, created in 1953 featuring the voice of radio broadcaster Gordon Gow, was only discontinued by Telstra in 2019.
The recreation of a cyber cafe will take visitors back to the beginnings of the information age in the mid-1990s. Inspired by a netcafe in St Kilda pioneered by digital strategist Rita Arrigo, the recreation includes a photo of the cafe’s opening night, where a 27-year-old Rachel Griffiths – a new household name following the release of Muriel’s Wedding the year prior – takes a business call on a phone the size of a bessemer brick.
“It’s a very hands-on interactive and immersive journey through the past, present and future technologies that connect us all,” Siddons said.
“One thing we’re really passionate about with this museum is demystifying technologies that are shaping our future, giving audiences that sort of agency to ask questions, get to know these technologies, and decide for themselves.”
The National Communication Museum, located at 375 Burwood Rd, Hawthorn in Melbourne, opens on 21 September.
