Moma – Design and the Elastic Mind

If you still haven’t seen the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition at Moma, I would strongly recommend you do so. I was there about 2 weeks ago on a Friday night and the exhibition was packed. Here is a brief description of it:

The exhibition will highlight examples of successful translation of disruptive innovation, examples based on ongoing research, as well as reflections on the future responsibilities of design. Of particular interest will be the exploration of the relationship between design and science and the approach to scale. The exhibition will include objects, projects, and concepts offered by teams of designers, scientists, and engineers from all over the world, ranging from the nanoscale to the cosmological scale. The objects range from nanodevices to vehicles, from appliances to interfaces, and from pragmatic solutions for everyday use to provocative ideas meant to influence our future choices. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Don’t mistaken this exhibition as another version of the Next Fest as it is much more than that. It is the first time in a public exhibition (non-industry events) that they actually defined Interaction Design. You can even see a section labeled Interaction Design in the exhibition. I think this is an exciting moment for Interaction Designers. It is one step closer to avoid the need to explain what we do for a living when we meet new people.

As for the exhibition, it is a nice recap of what’s going on out there. Nothing should come as a surprise if you are well read about the latest trends. However, I enjoy the story told by this exhibition. I love seeing all these different projects around the world with the goal of improving people’s lives instead of just being cool. My biggest takeaway is that technology is finally at a point of abundance where it is no longer proprietary, and that anyone can use it to execute ideas that creates meaning, or helps people. These ideas or executions are no longer restricted to research labs but anywhere around you.

Another thing that is great to see is data visualization. I am usually not crazy about it, but I do like the pieces that were chosen for this exhibition. Technology gave us access to so much data, but they are not really information until we find a way to create meaning out of it. In return, we can then use those information to do so many useful things such as this: http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/elasticmind/#/14/

Another nice touch is seeing this exhibition brought me right back to college. These are the kind of projects we did and studied. Nice to take a trip down memory lane sometimes.

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