Eden Medina
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Biography
Eden Medina is professor of science, technology, and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and department head of the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society. She is the author of Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (MIT Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Edelstein Prize for best book on the history of technology and the 2012 Computer History Museum Prize for best book on the history of computing. Her coedited volume, Beyond Imported Magic: Essays on Science, Technology, and Society in Latin America (MIT Press, 2014), received the Amsterdamska Award from the European Society for the Study of Science and Technology in 2016. Her research focuses on the ways science, technology, and design intersect with processes of political change. She holds a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT and a master’s degree in studies of law from Yale Law School.
Sessions
Reconstruction of the Cybersyn Operating Room
This article and photo essay will present the history and international impact of the reconstruction of the Cybersyn operating room, conceived by Stafford Beer, designed by the INTEC Industrial Design Department in 1973, and reconstructed 50 years later for the exhibition “How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Path to Design,” a show about graphic and industrial design during the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. The exhibition was conceived through the interdisciplinary research and creative work of professors from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. This exhibition was inaugurated at the La Moneda Cultural Center in Santiago, Chile, between 2023 and 2024, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the civil-military coup d'état. It was later presented at the Disseny Hub in Barcelona in 2025. This exhibition will be held between 2026 and 2027 at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt as part of the World Design Capital Frankfurt 2026 event. The exhibition comprises design pieces that aimed to democratize reading and music, reduce technological dependence, and combat childhood malnutrition, among other goals. One of the most outstanding pieces in the exhibition is the first comprehensive and functional reconstruction of the Cybersyn operating room. This article offers a visual account of the journeys that made the reconstruction of this project possible—a milestone in the history of design and cybernetics with which exhibition visitors can now interact.