Digital Revolution, which opened in early July at The Barbican, is an interactive and informative whistle-stop tour of the last 30 odd years of digital innovation – from video games and synth music to CGI technology and wearable tech.

Spanning the past, present and future of digital technology, Digital Revolution is an attempt to make us step back and take stock of the incredible changes we’re all currently living through. 

Although it’s hard to imagine a world without mobile phones, computers, or the internet, these technologies are actually still remarkably new – it’s just that their development has happened so quickly that even a five-year-old telephone or computer looks like a bonafide antique.    

But it’s worth remembering that for the best part of human history, the most effective means of communicating a message or idea was either its vocalisation or inscription into or onto a surface (be it rock, wood or paper) – with both being extremely limited in scope and flexibility.     

If the past one hundred or so years of innovation, starting around the time that Alexander Bell invented the telephone, represents a massive change in the potential of human communication and expression, then the digital revolution, which began somewhere between 1950 and 1970, represents these same developments gone into hyper-drive.

We now live in a time where amazing technology can rise and fall overnight – MiniDisk, anyone? – and developments which, only a few decades ago, seemed like impossible dreams – 3D television, portable music libraries, video-calling, etc. – have become run-of-the-mill.        

Thanks to the digital revolution, the world has become a much smaller place, with countries, cultures and people interacting with each other in ways previously unimaginable. And, as Digital Revolution seems to indicate, the best may still be yet to come.