When the TV series Dr Who first screened in the early 1960s, the props departments didn’t have the tools to make convincing monsters. 

This Dalek (top left) features among an eclectic bunch of screen characters in the exhibition, Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination, at London’s Science Museum.

Cyborgs on display include:

• The Maschinenmensch from Fritz Lang’s 1927 screen adaptation of Thea von Harbou’s 1925 novel Metropolis
• The costume worn by Boris Karloff when playing Frankenstein’s monster in the 1935 movie The Bride of Frankenstein.

In another part of the museum, I stumbled across a real life machine, which some might consider to be more scary. The Google Street View bike. It was deployed to capture kerbside images to augment Google Maps.

This article explains that certain billionaires, such as Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, arranged for the image of their home to be pixelated into a blur on Street View to protect their privacy. Such privilege was not available to everyone.

That said, Google Street View images come in handy when I’m trying to find my way around. 

You can visit the exhibition for yourself until 20th August 2023.

Tickets and a video preview are available here. 

Photos © Nicola Rossi, taken at the Science Museum, London 18 January 2023.