MoMA Bends the Limits of Art with 'Elastic Mind' Aesthetic

The Museum of Modern Art fully reasserted its modernity with this weekend’s opening of “Design and the Elastic Mind.” The show, which fills an exhibition gallery occupied just a few weeks ago by the drawings of late 19th century artist George Seurat, catapults the space into 2008 by turning it into a showroom for innovative and futuristic design.

“Design and the Elastic Mind” presents the fruits of 20 years of advancements in the realm of product design through computer science, nanotechnology, and biology. The collection of over 200 design objects are designed on an increasingly individualized level, with a greater consciousness of environmental issues and with a much greater ability to adapt to the needs and preferences of the consumer.

Sweden-based design group Front Design has developed the concept of Sketch Furniture (2005). A video camera translates freehand sketches made in the air to a computer program, which then produces an object through what is essentially a three-dimensional printer. The printer processes the digital image and produces a material replica by using laser beams to solidify liquid or powdered resin into a plastic form.

Front Design rightly claims that this technology could completely revolutionize consumerism. Take, for example, Internet shopping. With one click, the shopper may eventually be able to order merchandise that materializes right in front of them, dramatically reducing production and shipping costs. While the process of printing a chair currently takes around seven hours, the designers have hopes that as technology develops, the time could be reduced to seven minutes or even seven seconds.
Other designs appeal more to the sentimental consumer. Michele Gauler’s Digital Remains, Prototype (2006) allows for a new mode of mourning. Her concept consists of a “personalized data-storage artifact” with a Bluetooth connection. It allows loved ones access to the digital life of the deceased, including files, music, photographs, and other aspects of the individual’s computerized identity.

In a similar vein, artist Michiko Nitta’s Body Modification for Love Project (2005) allows the individual to graft body parts of their loved ones onto their own bodies. The most memorable photograph of Michiko’s work depicts an ex-girlfriend’s nipple growing on the pelvic bone of another figure.
Some of the concepts present even more unsettling premises than Nitta’s odd yet benign nipple-grafting. Designer Brad Paley has created a computer program, TextArc (2001), which scans literary input to produce what he describes as “structural analyses of text.” The result is an ovular ring, fringed by prongs of miniscule text. The ring encloses what resembles a bizarre solar system, littered with highlighted fragments of themes, ideas, and analysis.

The wall text quotes Paley’s description of TextArc as “a tool designed to help people discover patterns and concepts in any text by leveraging a powerful, underused resource: human visual processing.” While Paley’s program undoubtedly harbors positive implications in terms of alternative learning methodologies, it stands out as an attempt to digitize a cognitive process that seems inherently impossible to digitize.
While the obvious brilliance of the projects that make up “Design and the Elastic Mind” makes the show truly mind-blowing, it takes some work to actually grasp the concepts behind them. Even with paragraphs upon paragraphs of wall text and the aide of the accompanying audio guide, many of the ideas and explanations behind the works are difficult to understand. Because of the amount of advanced thought behind most of the works, curators clearly had to go to great lengths to make them accessible. At times, though, the explanations behind the less visually intriguing pieces overwhelm their aesthetic draw and make them easy to pass by.

All in all, “Design and the Elastic Mind” succeeds in creating an intellectually exhilarating show featuring the ideas and images at the forefront of contemporary design. The exhibition solidifies MoMA’s role as a truly modern institution devoted to celebrating human genius and boundless possibility.