What became known as a mouse was demonstrated in 1968 by Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). The idea occurred to Engelbart in 1964, when he attended a computer graphics conference and wanted to have a way to move the cursor on the screen. He then worked with engineers and drafters at Stanford to create a wooden case to hold the mechanics. The video on the Stanford site shows Engelbart using the mouse and keyboard in Clip 3; there are three buttons on that mouse. Many other aspects of the online system that SRI developed were also showcased on that December day in 1968.
Thirty years ago, according to Scientific American, Apple was the first company to sell a mouse as standard equipment with their 1984 Mackintosh model. Logitech claims to have built and sold over a billion mouses, sometimes referred to as “mice.” Now, “mouses” are an endangered species, with touch screens, touch pads and embedded accelerometers quickly becoming the main ways to communicate with computers.
Apparently the mouse got its name due to its tail, or wire, that connected it to the computer. Engelbart said he had no idea why it was called a mouse; he initially called it a bug. So that got me thinking about how many descriptive words stay the same despite changes in the forms of objects they describe. Many mouses no longer have “tails” because they are wireless.
In 2013, I asked artist Conrad Bakker to make a Kensington black wireless mouse sculpture for me, as part of his series, “Anything You Want.” Conrad teaches at the University of Illinois, and paints and sculpts ordinary objects in order to analyze their roles in our economies and daily lives. His examination of political economies was especially salient with “Anything You Want” because the project meant that we discussed the monetary value of the item I wanted, after my initial application to him. What is art worth anyway? The market so often confers a cost on an artistic product that seems incomprehensible in relation to many other items we purchase. For me, art is worth a lot, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, but I am hard-pressed to give it a dollar value. I cannot afford to buy most of the art that I love, if it were for sale in the first place. Anyway, I was fortunate that I could participate in Conrad’s project, and get a sculpture.
I sent him images of the Kensington mouse and he was willing to “construct the requested thing out of wood and paint, at an approximate 1:1 scale to the original.” We formally agreed on the amount that I would pay as well as other ways in which I would compensate him. Conrad asked that I keep mum about the “dollar amount [I] paid for the thing.” Not long after we signed our contract, Engelbart died at the age of 88.
That the Kensington K72352US has a red trackball was like a “cherry on top” for me. Conrad painted the base grey and matched the red of the sculpted trackball with its plastic counterpart. While I do not own an actual wireless mouse, I find my hand-crafted one very funny as well as historically apt, since the Engelbart’s mouse was constructed of pine.
