Boy Vereecken in his studio at Sint Lucas College of Art. Photo courtesy of Marthe Prins.

Monitor MEMEX, a publishing platform established as part of Sint Lucas College of Art, Antwerp last autumn caught my eye after our discussions with Jenna about the emerging models of design education. So, I met up with its founder Boy Vereecken, a designer and advising researcher at Sint Lucas, to talk about the function of the platform.

How did you come up with the idea to establish Monitor MEMEX?

Practicing both as a researcher and graphic designer at Sint Lucas, my task is to explore the contemporary professional field in relation to the school. Consequently, one of the main motives for establishing Monitor MEMEX was to encourage students to explore pragmatic ways of practicing research in the context of a design department. Finding Sint Lucas quite fragmented, I felt that it was worthwhile to first create a comprehensive structure, a new programme within the campus, and only after that move over to more specific research topics. The idea was also to restructure the documentation and archiving of activities at the college as well as to organise publishing and distribution in a way that would communicate with the outside world. In addition, the platform covers everything from workshops to online publishing and facilitating collaboration between different departments. It is my reaction to the challenges of Sint Lucas.

How can an academic institution benefit from this kind of an independent platform?

Through Monitor MEMEX, the academia can reflect on topics outside the institution and vice versa. The platform is fundamentally more dynamic than rigid institutions, slowed down by their complex structures and large scale. Thus, it offers the institution a just-in-time approach. The aim is to open up the institution by inviting people from different fields – most of them outside the design context – to contribute and, through that, recreate the study programme. Documenting and publishing these contributions, the platform compliments the institution not only as a provider of “real-life” content but also as a distribution channel.

“Monitor MEMEX offers Sint Lucas College of Art a just-in-time approach.”

The Monitor MEMEX logo by Boy Vereecken.

In addition, Monitor MEMEX functions as an important intersection and common ground for collaborations between different disciplines, because it is open for students from all departments: printing, fine art, jewellery design, graphic design, advertising, etc. Often these kinds of collaborations take place through established roles – the roles set by respective departments. However, working in a shared context and towards a shared aim leads to the abolition of titles. As a result, the almost confrontational approaches as well as methodologies are forgotten, and genuine collaboration can take place.

Can you tell me a little bit more about how Monitor MEMEX works in practice?

Since the platform was founded only a few months ago, it is still taking its shape and the programme will appear more structured in the next academic year. To begin with, lectures and screenings are organised around certain topics, and interesting responses to these will be documented in publications.

What kind of research topics are, in your opinion, relevant in the context of design at present? Which ones did you choose to tackle within the programme?

First of all, it is central to consider different ways of establishing one’s own practice – which methods to use, and how to resolve certain things in the process. Building up one’s own body of work, oeuvre, contributes to personal evolvement and the other way around. Thinking about one’s work as a long-term process is natural for artists and researchers, but unfortunately rare in the field of design.

“Thinking about one’s work as a long-term process is natural for artists and researchers, but unfortunately rare in the field of design.”

The first Monitor MEMEX research topic was ‘What Does Research Mean in Design Practice?’. This was discussed with two designers, Daniel van der Velden and David Bennewith, who both presented their approach to design and research. One of the current topics is ‘New and Its Meaning at Present’; how to be progressive today. Another topic is ‘Scenario Making’, which takes a look at the relationship between film and graphic design. ‘As Found’ encourages students to use research and questioning as methods in their work.

Can you think of similar initiatives that would have inspired or functioned as models for Monitor MEMEX?

At present, there are some similar platforms, but their approach and motives are very different. Maybe the most interesting example of all times is Black Mountain College that operated in North Carolina from 1933 to 1957 (often these types of initiatives seem to work because of their temporary nature). Quite a few prominent figures, such as Josef Albers, came to teach at the college after Bauhaus closed down due to Nazi pressure. Therefore, Black Mountain continued the Bauhaus legacy in many ways. The interaction between the academia and the professional field – one of the best educational tools in my opinion, and something that I apply at Monitor MEMEX – was central also at Black Mountain.

“The interaction between the academia and the professional field is one of the best educational tools in my opinion.”

Vormat, the first Monitor MEMEX publication.

How would you describe your personal research methods?

I have been very interested in figuring out the meaning of oeuvre in relation to my own design practice: How can a designer build on oeuvre? How can one’s practice reflect on itself in order to create something timeless? I hope that whenever something that I have created leaves the studio – and to whatever context it arrives – it will speak to things beside it as well as those before and after it. A guiding line, or a method in my work, is to picture how the result will look like in ten years time and in different contexts. This keeps me motivated.

What kinds of methods do you use in your teaching?

The methods are very much influenced by the fact that instead of giving classes or assignments, I have appointments with the Master students in the course of their final projects. The meetings are based on guiding and reflection.

Can you give me an example of a workshop that you have given as well as explain the ways in which research was part of it?

I usually introduce the students to design research through my own research-based projects. An example of this was a workshop that I gave in Venice with Kasia Korczak. It dealt with information graphics, which is an area of design that I am not particularly close to. However, by chance, we were working on a book consisting of quite a few graphs. So, we showed the book in progress to the students and asked them to make questions about the graphics and work with them, too. The aim was to find solutions to problems that we had while working on the book. In the end, the workshop involved many discussions, and even though the results didn’t exactly fit for the book in question (as I had wished for) they were much more interesting than I had expected. This experience also reminded me of how discussion certainly plays an important role in workshops.

This brings to my mind the phrase “doing research by design”, which points out research being part of the design process.

I definitely consider that an applicable approach. In the context of design, the tendency is to conceive research and execution as separate entities. Students tend to be done with the research part when moving on to working with visual means. The main aim of the platform is to encourage students to integrate research more profoundly into their practice.

“The aim of the platform is to encourage students to integrate research more profoundly into their practice.”

On the other hand, like you mentioned in the context of the info graphic workshop, design is traditionally defined as problem solving. Does your approach relate to this kind of design thinking in general, or is it something parallel to it?

This kind of an approach is necessary from the client’s point of view. On the contrary, I am interested in questioning the content through the creation of a subtle conflict. Adding to the “necessary” problem solving, I like to use my designs to open up the imagination. However, there are certainly many design practices based on problem solving, and I do acknowledge as well as introduce them while teaching.

What kinds of projects are you currently working on at Monitor MEMEX?

Just recently, we finished a Master class on typography given by Karl Nawrot, an illustrator and type designer. He has a strong oeuvre, and therefore I felt that it was worthwhile to introduce him to the students. Nawrot is very aware of how he positions himself in the field. He manages to incorporate his rather artistic practice into commissioned design projects so that both ends, the client and the designer, are content. Usually his projects result in vivid typefaces that enhance the character of the commissions and, at the same time, are fulfilling for him to work with. Nawrot’s secret lies in limitations that he sets for himself in the form of very particular models and tools applied throughout his design process. And that is exactly what, for me, is even more valuable than the end results – the way he carries out research through his practice.

Hello Ingo.

It all started in 2006 with Solutions 1-10: Umbauland (“Remodel Nation”), ten provokingly simple ideas which would see Germany work it out after all, including a new grammar, a new political party, and the Great Pyramid, the biggest building in the world which would serve as a democratic tomb for millions of people. At the moment, there are already five Solution books, and more to come.

How would you describe the series and its overall premise? Why the nation?

Because the nation is so weak. Basically, in the Solution series authors are asked to develop an abundance of compact and original ideas for countries and regions, contradicting the widely held assumption that, after the end of socialism, human advancement is only possible through technology or requires a yet-to-be-established world order.

“The Solution series contradicts the widely held assumption that human advancement is only possible through technology or requires a yet-to-be-established world order.”

Is authorship relevant to you in regards to the visions of Umbauland and Dubai Democracy?

I’m happy with just having the ideas, but they should have the potential to work. The books are like seeds. It’s more up to others to put them into the soil. And just as actual seeds, they can remain seeds for quite a while.

You’re not interested in personally pursuing their realisation through, for instance, political means?

I had the idea to take one of the ten visions in Umbauland, the first Solution book on Germany, and try to promote it myself. I chose The Great Pyramid – the idea of a mass tomb for potentially everyone – and did the project mainly in collaboration with an entrepreneur, Jens Thiel. We organised an architectural competition, produced a business plan, collaborated with an engineer who thought about how it could be realised, founded an association to support it, and got everything documented on film. We got immense media attention and caused a big debate in Germany, but it was difficult to take the next step. However, the project still exists.

In general, the more real the visions become the better. But my capacities are limited. I want to continue writing. How it usually works when proposing a vision for a country is that you become the face of the vision, having one key vision and sticking to it – promoting it for years and years. But this is boring for me.

Solution 186–195: Dubai Democracy by Ingo Niermann.

‘Strategic design’ and ‘design thinking’ have become buzzwords not only in business and industry but also on a governmental level. How would you place the Solution series on this map, and where do you think strategic design (or the Solution series) ends and politics begin?

‘Solution’ is a very common term in economics and there’s no problem with strategic design. But why not do these things completely independently? When you’re not necessarily dependent on the realisation of your ideas, it’s possible to choose a completely different rhetoric, a completely different language. Momus, for instance, wrote short stories on Scotland [see Jenna's interview with Momus]. And his forthcoming Japan book will be like a novel. Tirdad Zolghadr’s book about America is largely an autobiography.

Who are the authors of the books in addition to the ones on Germany and Dubai, which you wrote yourself?

They’re either friends or people who actually approached me. Momus got involved in The Great Pyramid project by performing at The Great Pyramid gala. He asked me if he could contribute, and I immediately said yes. I mean, I wouldn’t have dared to ask him myself.

What would you say is the role and meaning of being inside and looking out vs. outside and looking in in terms of writing about your own home country or other nations like China or Dubai in your case? Or maybe Scotland and Japan in Momus’ case.

Actually it doesn’t feel that much different – doing a book on Germany or one on Dubai. We had these discussions with one of the contributors, Tirdad Zolghadr, because a friend of mine wanted to do a book on Afghanistan and we wondered whether it would be neo-colonial if she as a German did that. But I think there should be no restrictions. Everything works. I mean, Momus did a book on Scotland. He is from Scotland, but almost never lived there. Still, there is a connection. Tirdad was also born in the US, but didn’t live there so long, except now when he returned to teach there. His approach was more about looking at the biggest, the still most powerful country in the world.

Ingo Niermann at home in Wedding, Berlin.

Going back to the question of genre. Is the boundary between fiction and non-fiction interesting or relevant to you?

I’m a novelist, although most of the books that I publish are non-fiction. But the possibilities of making things up or not making things up interest me. When you talk about the future, you don’t know where the boundary is. That’s a nice thing. Usually novelists write about things in the past. Or they write science fiction. However, my idea as a novelist creating the Solution series is that when you talk about the future it’s fiction per se.

“When you talk about the future, you don’t know where the boundary between fiction and non-fiction is.”

And how has your work with the Solution series been received? Has it been perceived as “real”?

There has been a lot of questioning in relation to my work. For instance, we went to a village which we had chosen as a possible place to build The Great Pyramid. Some people thought it was “Borat”. We were also given some funding for the project by the German Cultural Foundation, but they wanted us to ensure that we didn’t actually want the pyramid to become real. They liked the idea of keeping the piece in the framework of fiction and culture as they are not allowed to support real-estate ventures.

Which nations are next on the list?

There will be a book on Japan, The Book of Japans by Momus. Starting again from Scotland, on Shetland Islands, there’s a group of people who claim that they travelled to the future of Japan. They are twelve people, and they are called The Idiots. Now experts have to judge whether their prophecies on the future of Japan are realistic.

Then there’s another one, The United States of Palestine-Israel. It’s an anthology with 19 solutions written by many contributors and edited by Joshua Simon. It’s really interesting because the term ‘solution’ is very familiar in the context of Palestine and Israel. People always talk about the two-state solution, but it’s actually a guarantor of stagnation. And the book is all about opening up that discourse. It’s about questioning that solution and offering an abundance of new ones from creating a multitude of states to that one and only, coming up with a common myth for both Israelis and Palestinians. Some solutions evolve out of art projects and some from the perspective of politicians.

What else are you working at the moment?

At the moment, I’m working on a long essay titled Drill, which will include elements of fiction. It’s as much about my personal poetology, a way of understanding what I did so far and what keeps it together, as it is about the fundamental practice of contemporary people in general. It’s something that already happens, but I’m projecting it into the future. The Solution series is part of it, you’re part of it. I try not to do any less than understand the post post modern state – something that people do, but they just don’t know it yet. There’s all this opening up and crossing boundaries when you think of the last decades. And Drill could be the next step. It’s about limitations that you give yourself. It’s the freedom to restrict yourself. Radical performance art from the 70s has been of great inspiration to me when thinking about the Drill. In reverse, my concept of a Drill Palace inspired the performance artist Marina Abramović to “drill” her live audience.

Better Dreams, edited by Martti Kalliala and co-written with Jenna Sutela and Tuomas Toivonen will be published by Sternberg Press in 2011.

Besides being a child’s work, play can be an adult’s way of life. It is a creative state of mind where one uses the ability to symbolise in order to create something unprecedented. The ability to play doesn’t only lead to artistic masterpieces, but also enhances one’s inner freedom by enabling a rich relationship with life.

A playful state of mind can be seen as a third reality between oneself and the outer world. When playing, one is neither in the real world nor experiencing their inner reality in the purest sense. You draw on the surrounding material environment, but make it yours by altering it for your own purposes.

Being both the third reality and an intermediate area of experience, play is also an illusion. It is simultaneously true and untrue. The play experience is like watching a Technicolor film, which also produces a mixture of realistic and unrealistic worlds – ecstatic disbelief combined with a wish that all you see could be true.

“Besides being a child’s work, play can be an adult’s way of life.”

Play can be escapism or a place to rest. It allows a break from reality that conflicts with inner wishes. In play, one can deal with complex things through an “as if” attitude.

Play is a potential space – it enhances a creative relationship to one’s surroundings. When playing, it becomes possible to free presentations from their referents and modify them, generating more flexible ways to see the world. For example, a child can use a wooden stick as a phone to call someone but also as a saw to cut imaginary trees.

The ability to use real-world objects in creating imaginary ones emerges during the first year of life. Later, the playful state of mind continues to prevail in artistic practices, cultural and religious acts, and in the attitude towards oneself and the others. At best, play is manifested in the freedom to be the potential you.

The mind is a complicated place with all its parts, states and processes. I will never be able to get in touch with it in a way that I would become fully aware of all that is happening in me. There are and will be hidden parts in my mind. Something remains untouched and beyond the consciousness.

The unconscious mind has its roots in the body and bodily sensations. It is the most primitive and fundamental part of me where the urges of my body dictate the development. It is about keeping and feeling myself alive through constantly competing desires to create and destroy, to love and hate. Those were my very first experiences when I was little and did not master the words yet.

Nowadays, the closest I can get to my unconscious mind is when I’m dreaming. The dream world is a timeless place where anything I can and can’t imagine is possible. There is neither daytime logic nor any rules. Dreams are based on emotions. While dreaming, I have experienced the strongest and purest feelings: hatred, despair, horror, embarrassment, longing, and passion.

“Art touches the unconscious mind, because it connects with my archaic feelings.”

Art touches the unconscious mind, because it connects with my archaic feelings. Through art and its link to the unconscious it is possible to get a profound feeling of togetherness, an integrated sense of self. It is a magical feeling – like I had discovered something new and got connected to something old at the same time. There is a sense of alienation and familiarity side by side.

The unconscious mind hints about its existence to me. I can sense it in the instances of intuition and glimpses of gut feeling. In dreams and artistic achievements I can see pieces of my unconscious thoughts although they are in a masked form. I am connected to the unconscious when my body produces speechless, emotionally charged experiences and a free-floating sense of being alive.

My attitude towards the veiled part of me is ambiguous. It would be interesting to know more about what I am made of. At the same time, it is also scary to get in touch with the stranger in my mind. It is like diving into muddy water, not knowing what lies beneath. I have an urge to hold my breath and struggle to the shore, but going with the flow fascinates me more. That is why I will continue these gentle attempts to get in touch with different parts in me. For all I can say by now is: hello me, whoever you are!

Emilia Suviala is a psychologist specialised in developmental and educational psychology. She is interested in human attachment and psychoanalytic thinking.

Teemu Suviala is the creative director and co-founder of design consultancy Kokoro & Moi. He started his career drawing comics for Pahkasika magazine.

The near-collapse of our financial system has had tremendous effects on the architectural profession. The number of unemployed architects worldwide is higher than ever before. This, combined with the fragmentation of the building process into the hands of specialist consultants and the shift from architects being in the service of public to private capital, has made a lot of the work and responsibilities that traditionally belonged to them simply disappear or move to other professional domains. This is why newly graduated architects have difficulties finding jobs that match their education, creative ability or ambition – not to mention the thousands of students facing an increasingly uncertain future.

It is clear that new professional models are needed to accompany that of the architect as we have learned to know her. A degree in architecture is rarely considered a generalist education in the sense that one in law or economics is. Why should it be – if one thinks of ‘architecture’ merely as the art of designing buildings (a noble art as it is). However, if it is allowed to encompass its full potential and considered the art of dealing with contradictory problems and breaking down multidimensional and complex agendas into understandable, readable, liveable and functional concepts, designs and strategies, it opens up a whole new vista of professional opportunity. From the United Nations to curatorial practices, from rethinking organisational models to bringing a pronounced spatial expertise to politics, architects can challenge and add value to existing institutional, economic, social and governmental frameworks.

Martti Kalliala is an independent architect and musician who is currently touring the world with his electronic music project Renaissance Man. He has worked with, amongst others, NOW for Architecture and Urbanism and OMA. Kalliala is also currently editing a publication on better dreams for Finland.

Hans Park is an architect specialising in urban design and research. He currently works in Tokyo for Nihon Sekkei International, and has previous work experience in Nairobi, Seoul and Helsinki.

The infinity of design

“Design is the planning that lays the basis for the making of every object or system. It can be used both as a noun and as a verb and, in a broader way, it means applied arts and engineering.” Wikipedia nails it – design includes way too many things. It can refer to the planning process or to the final solution, and the fields of application as well as the forms that the end results may take are infinite. Some designers define their area of expertise very carefully whereas others assume the role of a generalist. In the latter case, evaluation of the design outcomes becomes harder, and there’s a distinct danger of a professional identity crisis. On the other hand, who came up with the idea to separate fields like design, art and science to begin with? The idea of designers being able to escape the world of design into other areas of life and work is actually very interesting.

Post-materialist design

The contemporary design industry is built on post-materialist needs (belonging, esteem, and aesthetic and intellectual satisfaction) instead of material needs (hunger, thirst and physical security) immediately linked with survival. Design for self-expression often lacks the functionality which originally distinguished the field from art. However, this kind of design is typically also missing the criticism that art provides. Instead of asking questions, design usually answers them, at least those asked by the market. Sometimes it feels like designers wishing to steer clear from making a profit aren’t considered designers at all.

Open design

Helsinki’s strategy for the World Design Capital year is to “embed design in life”, involving citizens in designing a better city. Opening up the field of design for critical discussion among the common public, as well as among professionals from other fields, could move the focus away from the glossy surface of the design industry. Yet, in practice, sharing the actual act of designing with the public is no less problematic than other crises design has recently come across. To overcome this dilemma, Helsinki needs to create intelligent tools and strategies for participation – and think beyond the word and the world of design while doing it.

Science Poem Manifesto in the Science Poems book. Photo courtesy of Paavo Lehtonen.

Science fiction is art.

Science fiction is science poetics.

Science fiction is more honest about our hell and heaven, the compassion and the monstrous failings of our species, than any other form of art. Science fiction is real counterculture. Science fiction has legs and arms, fire and brimstone, void and aether, bellows and pickaxe. It creates the world and then it walks among it, knowing it, loving it before it plunders the truth from difference.

We, the science poets, have the stars – inherited from your apathy – and the future; you, the rest, have our common past, and this slovenly Earth. Science fiction trammels the past, sows its bones into the soil. Science fiction looks into the abyss and sees life, builds life out of death.

Science fiction is not a canon of equivalence (Dick our Pynchon, Delany our Derrida, Butler, Tiptree, and Russ our de Beauvoir, Cixous, and Dworkin), but a canon of its own. The science poets have always known this. In our secret utopia where the kings and queens are those with stars in their teeth and dark chasms on their shoulders, the science poets honor one another. From their gates, the science poets will never turn you away, because cold pangs of fearful yearning for the alien live within us all.

No man is an island,
And no planet is in turn;
And that in six billion years,
We’ll stand and watch it burn.

Science fiction doesn’t tell the future, it builds it. Science fiction is a living tradition that informs the very world it critiques, inventing new myths, words, and realities just as we catch up to its old ones. Science fiction does not obey; it does not consume. It presents the path, so we can walk it without fear.

Science fiction is a tender, holographic tunnel reaching all the way back to us from the distant future, from beyond the stars, broadcasting comfort despite difference, hope among despair, and teaching us the importance of our moment in the face of the impassive monument of time.

Science poems are not abstract, they are not separate from the world: the future is a poem, for it doesn’t yet exist. And those things which don’t yet exist are like the breath on the tongue, a gesture yet to be made – they are sheer potentiality. They have the kinetics of real art.

As Stanislaw Lem wrote, science fiction “comes from a whorehouse but…wants to break into the palace where the most sublime thoughts of human history are stored.” Within the shadowy, grimacing frame of its own poetics, it does. Because the sublime thoughts of human history have always been projected outwards, to the vastness outside of our minds. Science fiction is a movement outwards, not inwards: “up, up, and away”.

Science fiction knows, like the science poets do, that the sky begins at our feet.

The science poets look at our sky and they see three moons, or a ringed planet in sultry sunset; they hear a voice whispering across the void, hear the malice in its tone, but still find how to forgive it. Science poets see a tentacle and know its embrace. Science fiction is the grief of tomorrow and the horror of today. Science poetry makes no illusions.

Some days the poets burn out,
They drink deep from the cup,
They look all around them,
And they think, “Beam me up!”

Claire L. Evans is an artist and writer living and working in Portland, Oregon. We love both her blog Universe and her band YACHT. The Science Poem Manifesto was written for the Science Poems book.

Johanna Laitanen: A Spectacle of Nature #02, 2005, C-Type Print.

As a kid, my favourite thing to do was to visit The Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki with my big sister. And my favourite thing inside was a baby cow with two heads, four ears and four eyes. The Siamese twins, that were actually an oddity in a building for wild organisms, made me wonder: if they were boys or girls, what would their life have been like had they survived? What could they possibly think now, if anything? And above all, why did they have to stay in a box of glass? Were they still alive, I would have wanted to touch them.

I have a friend, Johanna Laitanen, who makes art about natural history museums. She photographs them to pose questions about how our culture observes, conceptualises and represents nature. My big sister bought a piece from Johanna last year, a photograph of, not the calves, but bears in a diorama of the same Helsinki museum. Looking at this “observation of the observation” of nature, as Johanna describes her work, makes me amused about the idea that living in a small town, surrounded by wild nature, as a child, the climax of my visit to the capital was to observe nature in glass displays.

Johanna Laitanen: A Spectacle of Nature #01, 2005, C-Type Print.

Johanna’s photography deals with the human desire to experience and examine nature through romanticised depictions. She explores how the scientific and taxonomic representations are, in fact, originally developed to meet mainly dramatic needs and aesthetic aspirations.  In the end, my awe of the museumised nature was not only based on the fact that you don’t meet a bear in the forest everyday, if ever, but also on the cultural ideas; the fiction it offered. “Today’s museum displays have roots in Wunderkammers [or cabinets of curiosities, collections of disparate objects, gathered by wealthy and at their height of popularity in the Renaissance] that were assembled with little or no care for scientific categorisation,” Johanna explains. “They were much more about story-telling through objects and about ideas related to pre-Darwinian spiritual natural history, where nature was understood in symbolic meanings.”

Scientists strive for objectivity, but is there such a thing? Johanna tells me about her artist friend who sculpts animal figures and whose biologist father is unable to understand this. “I think that they are both doing the same thing, trying to understand the relationship between humans and nature,” she says. “It’s sometimes forgotten that scientific presentations are never objective, but, as with any human creation, they always reflect the ideas and desires of their time.”

Johanna Laitanen: A Spectacle of Nature #03, 2005, C-Type Print.

A month ago, I visited a natural science shop, Deyrolle, in Paris. Carrying objects like old teaching apparatus as well as collections of preserved and mounted animals of all kinds, I was dazed by the simultaneous beauty and oddity of the shop. It would have been possible to buy a polar bear from Deyrolle. But looking at the gigantic, beaming creature on the shop floor with a hanging price tag, I felt scared. It made me miss the dioramas that present scientific objects, animals, as we often wish to see them: in a seemingly natural, yet magical setting, isolated by a glass pane.

In the BBC footage, Feynman wonders how some people find sience so easy, and others find it dull and difficult – like children, for instance. “In the case of science, I think one of the things that makes it very difficult is that it takes a lot of imagination,” he says. “It’s very hard to imagine all the crazy things that things really are like. Nothing’s really as it seems. [...] But I find myself trying to imagine all kinds of things all the time. And I get a kick out of it.”

Exploring our place in the cosmos, the following transcripts and performance instructions aim to create an experience of science.

Water drop piece

Richard Feynman: “You see a little drop of water, a tiny drop. [...] The atoms in it attract each other. They like to be next to each other. They want as many partners as they can get. Now, the guys that are on the surface of the drop have only partners on one side, so they’re trying to get in. You can imagine this team of people all moving very fast, all wanting to get as many partners as possible, and the guys at the edge are very unhappy and nervous, and they keep on pounding in. And that’s what makes the drop a tight ball instead of flat – surface tension.”

Take a mannerism from an atom in a drop of water.
Gather a group of people in the same room for an hour.
Remain surrounded by a person on each side of you at all times.

Rubber band piece

“Most elastic things like steel springs and so on are nothing but this electrical thing pulling the atoms a little bit apart when you bend something, and then they try to come back together again. But rubber bands work on a different principle. There are some long molecules like chains that are kind of kinky and knocked about in shape. When you pull open the rubber band, the chains get straighter but they are being bombarded on the side by other little atoms trying to shorten them by kinking them, so they’re trying to pull back. [...] I’ve always found it fascinating to think, that when rubber bands are sitting on an old package of papers for a long time, holding them together, it’s done by a perpetual pounding, pounding, pounding of the atoms against these chains, trying to kink them for a long time, trying to hold this thing together.”

Wear a rubber band on your waist.
Eat a sandwich.
Think about the atoms that are pounding on your stomach.

Mirror Piece

“You look in a mirror, and let’s say you part your hair on the right side, but the image has its hair parted on the left side. So, the image is left and right mixed up. It’s not top and bottom mixed up because the top of the head in the image is still up there at the top, and the bottom of the feet are on the bottom. But how does the mirror know how to get the left and right mixed up but not the up and down? [...] It takes a lot of fiddling to describe what a mirror does. If you wave this hand, the waving hand in the mirror is right opposite it. The hand in the East is the hand in the East and the hand in the West is the hand in the West, and the head that’s up is up and the feet that are down are down. Everything’s really alright. But what’s wrong is that if this is North, your nose is to the North of the back of your head but in the image, the nose remains to the south of the back of the head. So, what actually happens in the image is neither mixing up the left and the right, nor the top and the bottom, but the front and back have been reversed. The nose of the image is on the wrong side of the head. Now, when we think of the image, we think of it as another person. And if we think of the normal way that a person would get into that condition over there, we don’t think of the idea that the person has been squashed and pushed backwards forwards with his nose and his head, because that’s not what ordinarily happens to people.”

Mirror all photographs of yourself on Photoshop.
Destroy the originals.

Swimming Pool piece

“If I’m sitting next to a swimming pool and somebody dives in [...], I think of the waves that are formed in the water. When lots of people have dived in the pool, there’s a great choppiness of all these waves all over the water. And to think that it might be possible that in those waves there are clues to what’s happening in the pool. [...] Someone with sufficient cleverness could just sit by the pool and figure out who jumped in; where, and when, by the nature of the irregularities and the bumping of the waves. [...] When we’re looking at something, the light that comes out is waves – just like in the swimming pool. It’s just that it’s in three dimensions.”

Look at the waves in a swimming pool.
Imagine what caused them.
Reconstruct that movement.

Portrait of Paola Antonelli.

How does curating design differ from curating art?

There are a lot of differences. My art colleagues tend to do more monographic shows that have a different approach than the thematic shows that I favour. The reason for the thematic focus might be that I have more to prove and explain. Design is currently not treated as an art in its own right and it has to fight for its own presence and relevance in culture. Another important difference is that art curators often have a lot of reverence for artists – what they say and do is considered almost a religion. Designers, on the other hand, are usually working for a client and used to being questioned and negotiated with. That makes the curating different.

Working at the intersection of design, art and science, we’d like to hear how you see the future relationship between the three.

At the time of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition we were not the first ones to make design and science meet but maybe the first ones to make a full-fledged show about it. The Royal College of Art and Wellcome Trust in London have been exploring the intersection for a long time and the interesting and beautiful thing about their approach is that nobody makes a distinction between art and design in this context. One of the things I learned when making Design and the Elastic Mind was that the disctinctions between design, art and science become insignificant when you try to come up with new ideas that haven’t been proven or that don’t have a functionality yet.

The role of art – as it is generally seen – is to question our beliefs and habits. When you want to do that with design you need to use the means of art, like many pieces in Design and the Elastic Mind did. However, at the same time, every single work in the show had a design intention and soul to it. It’s hard to say what’s the difference between art and design – and it certainly cannot be built on form. You rather have to go back to the intent of the artist or designer. An artist is free to choose whether to be responsible towards the society or not – where as designers, by definition, are always trying to make things better. Overall, I think that one of the main roles of MoMA and myself is to give people who are doing meaningful things a platform and a sense of validation.

“An artist is free to choose whether to be responsible towards the society or not – where as designers, by definition, are always trying to make things better.”

In our interview with Anthony Dunne, he said that art shouldn’t need to exist. His reason was that in an ideal, utopian world; everyday life would be so rich, meaningful and challenging that we wouldn’t need a separate category called art. “I kind of feel that art exists because design has failed,” he noted. What are your thoughts on this argument?

Haha, it’s a very extreme argument which I love and completely understand! It comes from the same militant spirit that I have here at MoMA – as representatives of design we have so much to prove. I’m very glad that Tony [Anthony Dunne] is taking this stance because we need to make more outrageous statements to make people think.

Like you write in Seed magazine, as the focus of design shifts from the production of finite goods to a practice of experimentation, ideas take precedence over products. How will this effect the role of designers?

I think this phenomenon expands the field of action for designers. Instead of being hired to manufacture products, designers might be hired to help the company think. I feel that Tony and Fiona [Dunne and Raby] are sometimes commissioned to be a thorn in the company’s side; to make them more aware of the consequences of their actions. I hope more designers will do that in the future, when people start understanding that design is not only about chairs and lamps. Designers can also work with politicians and policy-makers – many of them have the ability to be thinkers on a general level.

“I hope that more designers wiIl be hired by companies to be thorns in their sides; to make them think and be more responsible.”

We feel that the university didn’t exactly prepare us for what we’re doing now with OK Do. How do you think designers as general thinkers should be educated?

This is an interesting question because education is the most important moment for designers these days and the geography of design is completely defined by where the good design schools are and nothing else. Nowadays, many succesful design schools already lead a more holistic approach offering studies in subjects like anthropology, and sociology.

When I studied architecture in Politecnico di Milano I loved a course in technology by Professor Guido Nardi. On Tuesdays, he would talk with us about how steel, wood and other materials behave, but Fridays were dedicated to Jung, Heidegger and Adorno. In a way, there was a balance between cold and hot showers; between teachings in pure application of materials and pure abstraction of theory. I found this balance extremely important and would use the course as a model for schools today.

Nowadays, many design schools are actually focusing a lot on the theoretical side and there are so many academic design courses coming up, like design cricism, interaction design, transdisciplinary design, etc. This is great, but I also wonder if any of these students ever go to workshops and cut themselves while carving wood.

You have stated that design is a bridge between the abstraction of research and the tangible requirements of real life, and that designers stand between revolutions and everyday life. Could you mention examples of projects in which you feel design has functioned particularly well as a bridge?

There are many, of course. Designers can satisfy our human needs by making a technological innovation usable and exciting for us. The next exhibition I’m going to do at MoMA is about the communication between people and objects – it’s called Talk to Me. The first time I personally understood this concept was when I bought my first Macintosh. It was the first time I felt that I had a pet. And this is what designers really do: they make objects into something that is part of your life. In fact, nowadays one of the most important functions of objects is to enable people to access networks. That makes the interfaces of objects and the ways they interact even more important.

“Nowadays one of the most important functions of objects is to enable people to access networks.”

What kind of roles do functionality and aesthetics play in the process of translating scientific revolutions into approachable objects? What about in the end results?

Aesthetics is important as a means of communication but never by itself. There’s scientific research that says that handsome people get higher wages. It’s kind of unfair, but there is a role in our natural evolution played by beauty. On the other hand, we know very well that beauty is completely subjective and if you look at examples like Almodóvar’s movies or punk aesthetics, they might not be pretty in an obvious way, yet they are beautiful because of the personality inside.

Designers can help scientists master complexity and take advantage of new building blocks like nanotechnology for instance, but what about their ability to dream – do you think designers’ fantasies can and should get involved in scientific processes and, later, the reality?

Sometimes artists and designers and other creative professionals like science fiction writers or filmmakers inspire scientists big time and push them further, even if they don’t admit to it that much. I’m currently collaborating with a sci-fi director on a symposium about science fiction, architecture and design. We feel that almost everything that has been imagined by architects, designers and science-fiction writers in the past has actually been realised, and the question is: what could we imagine next?

What do you think is the designers’ role and responsibility in thinking about the (sometimes negative) consequences of scientific discoveries?

There’s a lot of morality in design. Sometimes moralism also, but often constructive criticism. Scientists are also very concerned with ethics and what their accomplishments are used for. I think that the more communication there is between designers and scientists, the more the ethical agendas will become a general practice that everybody takes on. Many scientists today are so different from the scientists we used to know in the past. They listen to music, they make mistakes and they think in terms of ethical responsibility.

“The more communication there is between designers and scientists, the more the ethical agendas will become a general practice that everybody takes on.”

The Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition was not concerned only with designers who have an interest in the latest scientific achievements, but also with scientists who are engaged in the act of design. Could you give us your favourite example of the latter kind of cases? And do you think it’s necessary to draw lines between professional designers and other people who practice design?

Certainly different people have different expertise and I would never put a designer in the lead of cancer research just as I wouldn’t let scientists design my mobile. It’s the communication between different fields and professionals that counts. One of my favourite works in the exhibition, ‘Colloidal Alphabet Soup’ was a new protein marker by two biologists from UCLA, Thomas Mason and Carlos Hernandez. Usually protein markers just feature different colours, but they also used the alphabet to mark the proteins in more detail. In the exhibition, they showed their work through a poster where an image of this colourful ‘alphabet soup’ was magnified. Next to their work, we exhibited a fictional piece, ‘Typosperma’ by designer Oded Ezer who had imagined that each spermatozoon of a man would have a letter attached to it with each ejaculation resulting in a new poem. The scientists were so happy to exhibit next to the designer, to not to be considered dull scientists but rather people who are creative too!

Science poems, literally speaking [haha]. So, you would say that design can produce culture, or experiences, around scientific discoveries?

Yes. A good example at Design and the Elastic Mind was a living coat called “Victimless Leather” by SymbioticA. It was made of living stem cells from mice and it had to be fed to be kept alive. It was constantly growing, finally to an extent at which I had to kill it by blocking the nutrient. I was so disturbed by having to do this and the act resulted in a big debate about killing the completely artificial yet living coat. This example demonstrates how art can take a stand in innovation and transform it into a project, it can really make you feel insecure about everything you thought we were steady and neutral about.

Victimless Leather - A Prototype of Stitch-less Jacket grown in a Technoscientific "Body", 2004. Image courtesy of the Tissue Culture & Art Project (Oron Catts & Ionat Zurr).

In our Science Poems exhibition, we have given designers and artists the brief to explore and interpret natural sciences. What do you think is the meaning and value of letting creative professionals interpret scientific questions, processes and results?

Do you have scientists checking out your work and making sure it’s exact?

The scientists will be more in the background, giving information and starting points, rather than actually getting involved in the art work which is based on interpretation and imagination.

What is important, I think, is to have scientists criticising the work in the end, to give their opinion about the direction the interpretation is taking. A beautiful example of an artist and a scientist collaborating this way is that of the artist Matthew Ritchie and physicist Paul Steinhard. I think it’s important to show people working together and not apart. But if the artists are free to do whatever they want, this should be explained clearly on the label.

To sum it up, could you name the 3 the most interesting or meaningful concepts or phenomena in which design/art and science meet?

1. Synthetic biology is important. The idea that you can make organisms out of composing bricks.
2. Nanotechnology – designers are paramount there.
3. Visualisation design – designers helping scientists to make sense of their data.