Went to MoMA today to check out the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit mentioned in my earlier post about the Nokia Morph. While there I realized that I love compelling and thought provoking exhibits, but I hate going to them. It’s always a matter of time. When exhibits are crowded I never have enough time to explore without feeling pressured to move on, and when I go to an exhibit with other people they never move quickly enough through the uninteresting parts. I like to browse exhibits like I browse the Web. Zooming through until something catches my eye, then stopping at length to explore the eye-catcher in detail. I’ve been known to zoom through an entire museum in less than an hour just because nothing caught my eye. Maybe I’m a philistine who should stick to television and TMZ, but maybe it’s because much of what is called art is truly and objectively uninteresting. It’s like the time I went to Barnes & Noble when I was a teenager and realized that a majority of books are so unoriginal that they never should have been written in the first place.
OK so my take on the exhibit (I won’t go into detail about the specific pieces because I don’t have the time)… Pretty damn cool with the occasional yawner. Put simply the exhibit focused on the future of design as technology affects what can be done. They had pieces on organically influenced design, human sensory extension, genetic design, interaction design, material design, information visualization, nanotechnology and molecular design, and probably some other crap I missed cause it was too crowded.
The nanotechnology stuff was interesting, but too small to see. Ha. Actually it was probably the most interesting as an example of how technology will cause a fundamental shift in what is possible for designers. Speaking of small, the interaction design section was WAY too small. I admit that I’m biased because of my affinity for IxD, but I doubt if anyone wouldn’t have been disappointed with the samples of future interaction design displayed. There was some good stuff focused on information visualization, but it definitely seemed more art than product. Not a bad thing for an art exhibit, but I would have liked to have gotten more of a sense of proposed value. One thing that strikes me is the number of exhibits that focused on mobile communications devices that look like mobile phones. There’s something deep in my soul that whispers to me every time I see a futuristic mobile phone. It whispers “twenty-five years ago there were no mobile phones, what makes people think that in twenty-five more year there still will be?”
One thing that really stood out at the museum was a kiosk in the book store on the 6th floor. The kiosk is in place to allow visitors to select and purchase prints from the museum and have them sent directly to their address. It’s supposed to be a one stop shop for buying prints. Here are the instructions:
- Select your MoMA print using the touch screen catalog
- Decide on the size of your print
- Review framing options
- Confirm your order
- Please go to the register to pay for your order
- Your print will be delivered to your chosen address
Notice anything umm retarded in that process? If not, please take a closer look at # 5. It’s absolutely ridiculous that they could not have added credit card processing. Why in the world would you disrupt the process like that? It’s as if you went to Amazon.com and at checkout they asked you to call in to purchase your order. It’s sad. No wonder the interaction design component of the exhibit was limited.
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