"Knowledge can improve one’s intuition. The goal is to not let either overpower."

Preparing for the ten-minute reading, the gallery visitors were asked to pick up a personally topical tweet from the printed archives of Maeda’s Twitter philosophy. Each tweet could only be picked once. I went for:

Twitter
Mon Jan 11 11:26:22 +0000 2010
Edu Knowledge can improve one’s intuition. The goal is to not let either overpower.

Subscribers to the reading were also encouraged to think of a question for the oracle. Considering Maeda’s reseach into the necessary role that artists and designers play in the 21st century creative economy, mine had to do with career advice.

Visiting Maeda in his (physical) sandbox upstairs of the gallery was an interesting experience. Somewhere between McKinsey Consulting on tour, self-help and Twitter of the real world, the event felt relevant and meaningful. Drawing in the sand of his box, Maeda talked about art and science, the loneliness of working on Skype, and the future of OK Do (based on a brief introduction). OK Do’s fortune cookie:

Live
Thu Nov 18 18:50 +0000 2010
”It’s good to write because people can read.”

The MUJI paper chair. Photo courtesy of MUJI.

For the paper chair exhibition, we (and 49 other designers) were sent a chair and asked to make something special out of it by painting or modifying it in other ways. In the end, the custom chairs would be exhibited and finally donated to local kindergartens. We made ‘Rinne / 輪廻’ which is a study on the life of a paper chair that can be used as nutrition for growing plants after its original function as a piece of furniture to sit on. Our piece will be given to children in the form of a flower.

Rinne / 輪廻

Paper chairs have a life. When they’ve done their job, they can reincarnate as nutritious ash for plants. We made kindlings, and finally a small bonfire out of the paper chair. It kept us warm on a cold night in Berlin. Next, you can give the chair a new life by planting flower seeds to a mix of earth and the ash from the fire – rich in calcium and potassium, and thus vital to healthy and strong plant growth.

Photos by Jenna.

Thank you Elisabeth, Martti, Norman and Tesalia!

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.

Napa Gallery, Jani, Lotta and Martti.

Science Poems mini exhibition and Anni.

Books, Maija and Stella.

Paris photos and herbal drinks.

Jenna making drinks.

Benjamin and the party on the street.

Nene listening to DNA Junk by Martti Kalliala. On the left: Faraday Suit vest by K.I. Kinnunen. On the right: Higgs Boson by Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg.

Kaira looking at Brain Forest by Nene Tsuboi.

Nene, a Science Poems artist and typographer for the Helsinki party.

Order Science Poems online through Napa webshop.

Astronomy
Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg – Higgs Boson, 2010, Digital print

Anna Ahonen & Katariina Lamberg: Higgs Boson (2010), digital print, 80x120cm

Higgs boson is a hypothetical elementary particle predicted to exist by the Standard Model in particle physics. Experimental detection of the Higgs boson would help to explain the origin of mass in the universe. It is currently searched using the particle accelerators of CERN but it has yet to be observed in the physical world. If the Higgs boson cannot be found to exist, the current cosmological and physical models must be radically reassessed – and our conception of reality will change.

“The idea is to give attention to a phenomenon we find fascinating, to convey its mysticism to others,” Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg explain. “Natural sciences encompass many intriguing and beautiful things that usually remain within books and the dedicatees. We, however, didn’t want to make a scientific or theoretical representation of a scientific thing, but rather use the facts as a starting point for a work of imagination.”

Anna Ahonen (b. 1981) and Katariina Lamberg (b. 1977) form a multidisciplinary design studio Ahonen & Lamberg founded in Paris, 2006. They are also co-founders and art directors of the Dossier Journal.

Biology
Nene Tsuboi – Brain Drawings, 2010, Ink and pencil on paper

Nene Tsuboi: Synapse (2010), ink on paper, 40 x 30 cm

The altogether six brain drawings – Brain Forest, Miracle of Brain, Dopaminergic, Neuron, Synapse and Dopamine – explore the scientific aspect of human feelings, experiences and perceptions. They were inspired by the love stories of a Japanese writer Shungicu Uchida that Nene Tsuboi has been working with.

“I wasn’t so much into science at school, but when I read an essay written by a Japanese brain scientist Ken Mogi some years ago, I became a big fan of brains,” Nene Tsuboi says. “I like the way he crosses over the borders of art, science, philosophy and religion in his books, radio shows and blogs. What intrigues me the most about brains is that we don’t know that much about them yet,” Nene Tsuboi says. “Everybody has one but they still haven’t been totally understood by anybody.”

Nene Tsuboi (b. 1976) is a Japanese graphic designer and artist living in Helsinki since 1999. She started her work as an illustrator with ANTEEKSI design collective in 2001, and later founded NOW architecture and design office with architect Tuomas Toivonen.

Chemistry
Martti Kalliala – DNA Junk, 2010, Audio

Martti Kalliala: DNA Junk (2010), audio 33 min.

DNA Junk is a base pair sequence of non-genomic DNA translated into notes through MIDI and played by a Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser. DNA – the storage for genetic information in all living things – consists of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine (A, T, G, and C) molecules. The sequences of these four bases, A, T, G, and C, determine how you differ from other living things. So, for instance, the raw data needed to construct a particular human being is a 3 billion character long sequence of these four letters. If this is translated into notes as such, it produces a near infinite monophonic melody with seemingly little variation.

“It’s been known since the early 1980s that the construction of DNA and musical composition bear similarities in their repetition processes,” Martti Kalliala explains. “However, I thought it would be interesting to bring the concept into my ‘home’ domain of techno/house/electronic dance music, and make something that’s actually meaningful in this context – not only conceptually but musically too.”

Martti Kalliala (b. 1980) is an independent architect and musician who is currently touring the world with his electronic music project Renaissance Man. Having worked amongst others with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and NOW, he is also editing a publication on twelve pragmatic utopias for Finland.

Earth Sciences
Miska Knapek – Windtracing, 2009, Real time digital visualisation

Miska Knapek: Windtracing (2009), a real time visualisation on a computer screen

The animation draws the story of the wind’s movement, taking place in Helsinki over one year. It narrates the hidden life of the wind with a pencil-thin grey line moving in the same direction and with proportionally similar velocity as the current of air. The larger line on the screen shows a close-up revealing the wind’s more intimate movements.

“There’s a slight existentialist moment in the process of working with real-time data – even if you make rules for how the data is going to be shown, you never know what you’re going to get,” Miska Knapek says. “You could say that I got into meteorology through seeing what the wind data does: how temperamental the wind can be, how different seasons affect it, and so on. The stereotypical idea of the wind is that it either blows or it doesn’t, and that it’s this static, lifeless thing that goes in one direction at a time. But when I got the Windtracing running, I saw a movement that reminded me of a dancer. I had to sit down for an hour or so to only watch it go.”

Miska Knapek (b. 1975) is a Danish interaction designer and artist living and working in Helsinki. Growing up by the sea, wind has always been a part of his life. Miska’s spatio-temporal work opens new windows to the world.

Physics
K.I. Kinnunen – Faraday Suit, 2010, Clothing of copper silk plain weave, silk metal organza, boiled metal wool, carbon net, etc.

K.I. Kinnunen: Faraday Suit (2010), copper silk mix (vest) and ESD protective cotton with carbon fibre jersey mix (multi-purpose garment). Photo courtesy of Justus Järnefelt.

Faraday Suit is a series of clothing bridging technoromanticism and retreat. Exploring the invisible electromagnetic environment it resonates with everyday life through pieces functioning as interfaces between the built electrosphere and our internal world.

“The design for the series came about through exploring electromagnetism, electromagnetic spaces and wearables in those spaces,” K.I. Kinnunen describes. “I also looked into conducting materials like carbon and metal fibres as well as intact and layered surfaces. I like to call the end result a wearable tale, or functional fiction in the spirit of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s thinking (see OK Do’s interview with Dunne & Raby). This is because Faraday Suit plays with the idea of functional fashion design by inventing new motives of use through creating, for example, natural spaces with association to insulation from the electromagnetic environment.”

K.I. Kinnunen (b. 1984) is a fashion designer based in Helsinki. Having graduated as Master of Arts from the School of Art and Design at the Aalto University early this summer, Kinnunen spent last spring working with Haider Ackermann in Antwerp. At the moment, she is designing mini-collections for her portfolio as well as made-by-order pieces for private clients.

Cross-disciplines
Kaarle Hurtig and Simo Vassinen – Welcome to Parasite, 2010, Photography and text

Kaarle Hurtig & Simo Vassinen: Welcome to Parasite (2010), photography and text

by sherabbi, Nov 20, 2009 12:00AM (5 member comments)
Actually, the symptoms have progressively worsened: diarrhea/IBS, sharp pains on my left side. Nausea, UTI/Bladder Infections – chronic; these do not respond well to antibiotics (I was in Emergency in Brasilia a few days later with IV antibiotics). Weight gain, insomnia, Acid Reflux, dizziness, Respiratory Problems/Infections, DX with asthma in 2003, then COPD in 2006. I have NEVER smoked.
–
[Our] modern Marco Polos now bring back the moral spices of which our society feels an increasing need as it is conscious of sinking further into boredom, but that this time they take the form of photographs, books, and travellers’ tales. (…) The perfumes of the tropics and the pristine freshness of human beings have been corrupted by a busyness with dubious implications, which mortifies our desires and dooms us to acquire only contaminated memories. (C. Lévi-Strauss: Tristes Tropiques)
–
Welcome to Parasite investigates parasitology through anthropology and a metaphor of a paradise lost. “People travel across the seas in search of themselves, for realness and for belonging,” Kaarle Hurtig and Simo Vassinen say. “Every now and then, a parasite follows us home. There’s a microscopic worm that eats our insides, reminding us of false dreams and vanity, and leaving an emptiness that’s hard to shake off. But we would still rather stay inquisitive than stop. Claude Lévi-Strauss talked about the “sadness of the tropics” and the disenchanting side of exploration. Thor Heyerdahl’s eagerness was naive at times, and Paul Gauguin’s Tahiti was romanticised and corrupt. Our work is about this battle of curiousity, amazement and melancholy.”

Science Poems artists: Anna Ahonen & Katariina Lamberg (portrait by Spela Kasal), Nene Tsuboi (portrait by Hertta Kiiski), Martti Kalliala (portrait by Paavo Lehtonen), K.I.Kinnunen, Miska Knapek and Simo Vassinen & Kaarle Hurtig (portraits by H. Kiiski).

The full length interviews with the artists are included in the Science Poems book along with various other poetic writings and images about science by OK Do and friends. The book, designed by Åh, is available online at Napa Bookshop as well as at the 0fr bookshop, La Librairie du Palais de Tokyo, Librairie Flammarion at the Centre Pompidou and Yvon Lambert in Paris; AA Bookshop, Koenig Books at the Serpentine Gallery, Artwords Bookshop Hackney and b store in London; Kiasma (Mannerheiminaukio 2) and Napa Gallery (Eerikinkatu 18) in Helsinki; do you read me?! (Auguststrasse 28), Pro qm (Almstadtstrasse 48-50) and Motto (Skalitzer Str. 68) in Berlin as well as NEW ACCIDENT (233-1 Jyouhoku) in Komatsu, Ishikawa.

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.

André Breton, an autoportrait (ca. 1929) | Still image from Alphaville by Jean Luc Godard, 1965

AM: Firstly, I would like to ask how you came up with the idea to curate an exhibition that deals with natural sciences in relation to art and design and vice versa? What kind of inspirations and motivations are behind the exhibition?

JS: We’ve both been operating somewhere in the borderlands of design, touching on both art and science in our work. For instance, interaction and communications design, information visualisation or design research all call for transdisciplinary interest. We’re curious about exploring different systems and theories, and things like electromagnetics, or the brain – a bigger picture beyond one discipline. I think that design or art, for us, is about trying to develop strategies of understanding and showing. A lot like science. And it’s interesting to mix the different ways of looking at things, the ways of an artist and a scientist. Like André Breton [a surrealist theorist] said: “To change ways of being, one has to first change ways of seeing.” Or, we could also look at seeing from a Steinerian perspective and say that just like the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas. Rudolf Steiner considered this to be the premise upon which Goethe made his natural-scientific observations – looking at ideas as “objects of experience” and thinking as an organ of perception. I think we need design, art and science, and both the real and the imaginary, in the same stream of thought to understand the world better.

“We need design, art and science, and both the real and the imaginary, in the same stream of thought to understand the world better.”

AP: We think that the theme of mixing science with visual disciplines is definitely in the air right now and one of the reasons for this could be that you don’t need to be a scientist to have access to a profusion of information nowadays – as well as to tools to handle it. Different professionals are also very open for co-operation these days: it’s an adventure to jump outside your own field. The idea of Science Poems was very much inspired by existing design and art that deals with the topic of natural sciences. In addition to the contemporary examples, like designer and professor duo Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby and Marc-Olivier Wahler, the director of Palais de Tokyo – whom we’ve interviewed for the Science Poems book – we have many idols who have operated in the borderlands of design, art and science in the past. Having previously discussed the topic with Jenna, I got really into it after seeing Alphaville, a 1965 film by Jean-Luc Godard . Like Alphaville, in James Monaco’s words, “prefers to see the poetry of science rather than its mathematical logic”, we also wish to dig into the lyrical and visual sphere of science, making subjective interpretations and questions about it.

AM: Talking about the big picture and interdisciplinary thinking, Jenna, I remember that your MA thesis at the University of Art and Design Helsinki was inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog, a counterculture publication from the 60s and 70s. Stewart Brand’s catalogue aimed to give people the tools to better understand the world through different ways of affecting one’s environment. Has it had an effect on Science Poems, too?

JS: The Whole Earth Catalog has been inspirational to me when it comes to understanding what and how to design. It presents a lot of narratives of design in everyday life and provides means for the readers to find their own inspiration, shape their own environment and share their experience with whoever is interested. In practice, the catalogue contains information on different means for making things, listing artefacts from special-purpose utensils to informative books and courses, as well as early synthesisers and personal computers. So, instead of showing the end results – ready-made objects or products, like catalogues often do – it rather presents tools to spark ideas. Like my former boss at Arki research group would say, Brand’s catalogue is a classic example of “design for designability”. As a matter of fact, the Whole Earth Catalog has been described as a conceptual forerunner of web search engines. It blurs the boundaries of expertise and everyday, bringing information about different fields of activity closer to people of various disciplines. And this is what the Science Poems project aims to do, too – to function as a common point of reference (a boundary object) for interdisciplinary conversations about natural sciences, in this case.

Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, 1968 | A Wikipedia Reader by Mylinh Trieu and David Horvitz (eds.), 2008

AM: Being a graphic designer, I have noticed a tendency towards interdisciplinary thinking also in my own field. Glossaries creating connections between subjects from different sources have been a widely used approach in editing content to inspire people to look at things from a different perspective and to question certain “truths” or divisions into rigid categories. I assume that this linking of things partly derives from online practices, and using Wikipedia in particular. A publication called A Wikipedia Reader, edited by Mylinh Trieu Nguyen and David Horvitz, deals with this phenomenon by linking topics from different fields and hierarchy levels together. Wikipedia links subjects to each other in a way that breaks down certain traditional divisions and hierarchies – subjects with typically different value levels might appear on the same level… The ways to present information surely affect on how we perceive and use it. Operating mainly online, have you been thinking about these kinds of things now that you’re presenting something offline?

JS: Yes, the question about perceiving information and different value levels online, where everything is miscellaneous, is really interesting. There’s a risk that some bits of important information go unnoticed and, in time, vanish in the process of searching, copying and pasting. Or their original meaning might change when they travel through different contexts. For example, when someone googles ‘cosmology’ and finds our publication, or the stories about Cosmic Wonder art organisation and artist Yayoi Kusama, uninformed about the field of science, could they consider cosmology an art movement and write about it on their blog? The life of information is, definitely, one of the things we’ve considered during the Science Poems process – also from the point of view of us learning about natural sciences online. Another interesting issue to think about is the change of context from the online environment to a gallery space with limited access to Wikipedia, Google and other tools for interpretation. In the physical exhibition, we, together with the artists, can decide what kind of information to display next to each piece of work – and what to leave out. And making this publication, for us, is about linking the exhibition to a wider frame of reference and extending the show beyond the gallery. Umberto Eco recently used the expressions ‘the poetics of everything included’ and the ‘poetics of the etcetera’ when talking about lists, and I think we can easily say that Science Poems falls into the latter category. Our idea is to continue exploring the topic after the exhibition, too.

AM: Extending a show outside the gallery reminds me of Exhibition Prosthetics, a recent publication by Joseph Grigely which deals with the relationship of an exhibition and its catalogue. It argues that a catalogue can, in fact, be seen as part of the exhibition – instead of a mere extension.

JS: Last December, I met with artist Simon Starling who had done some research on the relationship between an exhibition and its catalogue for the MAC/VAL exhibition Thereherethenthere. He drew a parallel between putting up an exhibition and producing an exhibition catalogue, seeing the two activities equally important and integrally linked. He stated that books often carry research material, a sense of time and place, and/or a network of connectivity into the presentation of a work. He also said that in some instances the exhibition itself serves as an intermediary editorial process in the production of a book. I think this was a particularly interesting thought, and one that could be applied to the making of the Science Poems publication as well.

“We use both the print and web publication as symbiotic companions of the exhibition.”

AP: In our case, we use both the print and web publication as symbiotic companions of the exhibition. The website is a great tool for, as we suggested earlier, providing the audience with convenient access to the links related to the Science Poems project. We hope that people will come to see the exhibition because they read about it at www.ok-do.eu, and that they will go back to the website and read the book after seeing the exhibition, in order to go deeper.

Exhibition Prosthetics by Joseph Grigely, edited by Zak Kyes, Bedford Press 2010 | www.ok-do.eu

AM: Simon Starling’s work is indeed an intriguing example of looking at ways to open up processes behind art and design. His project brings to my mind a show, Archiving the Catalogue, that recently took place in Berlin. In fact, it was an open project space by artists Nicolas Y Galeazzi and Joël Verwimp. They had put up an experimental editing-laboratorium where the process of editing a publication was physically on display – exhibited as an ongoing and evolving work. This reminded me of the fact that editing is all about choices, and that there is in a sense no definitive truth.

JS: I remember there was a similar performance by Dexter Sinister at Proforma last autumn, where they organised a team to write, edit, print and distribute a newspaper twice a week during the event. The project was partly about how the news creates what we believe is true, yet its main idea was to show that the activity of editing a newspaper is as much about process as it is about product. And this is totally the case in our work with Science Poems, and the fact that it is our first publication makes the process even more interesting. There are so many things to consider and learn about: management, tone of voice, working with other writers, editing our own text, copyrights, physics, biology, astronomy. Equally, when making a publication out of personal interest, with no external guides or restrictions (other than not being able to afford more than 144 pages and having to get it ready for the exhibition in June) many things are based on our intuition. The book reflects the interests of Anni and myself, and is the sum of all the people involved.

AM: Are you interested in exhibiting the artworks connected to the scientific context where they derive from, or do you rather want to keep the connection more ambiguous, poetic? I was recently working for Extra-City, a Belgian museum arranging an exhibition dealing with Animism, an idea according to which animals, plants, rocks and so on have a soul.

The curators looked at the term from a contemporary point of view in order to question the dichotomies that modernism had associated with it. Glossaries with historical references presented next to the art works directed the visitor’s perception to a certain mindset but the curation still left space for different interpretations of the works. How did you find a balance between opening up the backgrounds of the works and leaving certain things open for people to interpret?

AP: The Science Poems exhibition aims to present artists’ and designers’ ideas about natural sciences. Some of them, like Miska Knapek, use scientific data very strictly in the actual production of the piece, whereas others have taken scientific ideas and made their own interpretation of them, like Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg. I guess the main principle of the exhibition is that it’s acceptable and justifiable to interpret, explore and discuss science with artistic tools and intuition. Our chat with Tomi Kokkonen, a philosopher of science (the interview is also included in the book) made us feel a whole lot more comfortable about it. With him we discussed how art could be used to bring new aspects of science and its subject matters within the reach of different kinds of people; by offering alternative perspectives to it and its relation to everyday reality.

“Some of the artists and designers in the Science Poems exhibition use scientific data very strictly in the actual production of the piece, whereas others have taken scientific ideas and made their own interpretation of them.”

The book contains additional information on the exhibition and the pieces as well as ideas OK Do has about science at the moment. I don’t think we believe casting light on the background of a work of art or an exhibition would create barriers to interpretation. Therefore, we interviewed all the artists and asked them to tell us where they are coming from with their work. In that sense, we are very much designers as well – instead of keeping the backgrounds and messages a mystery we like to dig them out and show them to the rest of the world. And when dealing with visual language, there will always be space for interpretation no matter how much you talk about it.

Dexter Sinister's The First/Last Newspaper, 2009 | Étienne-Jules Marey: Buse volant avec l’appareil qui signale les mouvements décrits par l’extrémité de son aile, 1873

AM: Anni, you mentioned that you have been inspired by existing design and art that finds itself on the borderlines of design, art, and science. Could you give an example of this and how it changed your thinking, especially in relation to Science Poems?

AP: One moment of revelation for me was when I first discovered the thinking of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby. To be honest, at the university, I had been pretty much educated to find solutions for other people’s problems. Dunne and Raby turn things around by saying that designers should find problems instead of solving them. This kind of design attitude connects with art that practices social criticism, and since scientific development affects our society, art and design, they all go hand in hand. Dunne and Raby have written a book called Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects. It’s a good example of a project which explores all of these disciplines at once.

AM: It would definitely be a shame if the abilities of designers were used only for commercial needs. Asking questions through design is something that I learned when studying in the Netherlands. There is a lot to learn from Dutch designers’ abilities to tackle social issues!

 How did you come up with curating an exhibition instead of, for example, writing articles or conducting interviews around the topic of Science Poems? What kinds of insights do you think that an exhibition as a means of distributing content can bring about?

JS: We think organising events like exhibitions or talks establishes a nice dialogue with writing about things. We like to learn by doing, documenting, and building something new on top of it. Sometimes, we also like to come out of our medium and meet people offline (haha), and exhibitions are great places to do that. The works of art on display stimulate discussion.

“We like to learn by doing, documenting, and building something new on top of it.”

While the digital world rearranges itself for each person and their current task, a physical exhibition is presented to everyone in the same way, through someone else’s lense, under a predefined topic. Of course, the interpretations may vary and people pick up things according to their own interests, but the starting point is the same – and it includes an element of surprise. The experience is also tied to a certain time and place, which makes it unique. Exhibitions can bring about interesting reactions and encounters.

Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Birkhäuser 2001 | Logo of the natural history museum of Paris

AM: How did you end up locating the exhibition in Paris?

AP: Paris was chosen because this year it has become one of our favourite places on earth. There are many reasons for that: Jenna was there for an artist residency, I fell for a French guy, we saw inspiring movies like those of Jean-Luc Godard and were also inspired by the aesthetics of science in France. I think our fascination is based on the poetic nature of French aesthetics and how it reflects classical ideas and history in which all new knowledge finds its roots. The graphic design of the Science Poems book has also drawn inspiration from that, as Åh, the designers of this book, also share our fascination.

Spread from an old French science book | Deyrolle magazine, 46 rue du Bac, Paris

AM: I noticed that most of the works in the exhibition are created by designers. Was it a conscious choice from you? And is this perhaps related to your interdiscplinary thinking – that it is not necessary to separate art and design that strongly from each other?

AP: It’s all about friends! We chose the exhibitors by intuition and the decisions took place very naturally, based on the pool of talented people we are so lucky to have around us. We are designers by training and have actually met many of the people more or less through our university. Having said that, we also believe in messing about with categories, roles and definitions – we think that renaissance spirit is good for both individual people and the whole world. Many people have multiple talents and interests and it’s interesting to take these to unusual contexts and see what happens.

Art vs. design is a topic that we’re generally very much into, perhaps because we are keen on doing art in a designer way and vice versa. We’ve had some good discussions about the topic with, for example, Paola Antonelli (article to be published soon). Right now, our aim is to explore this issue by doing and experimenting, and the Science Poems exhibition is one the first steps. The main thing for us, whether it’s about a commissioned or an independent project, is to mix analytical investigation with intuitivity and self-expression with social and critical activity.

JS: We like to think of art instructing design through presenting wild ideas that might seem utopian to begin with but, at their best, can lead into cultural production of new forms of practice. Dunne and Raby call it critical design. The interesting thing about art is that it enables displaying experimental artefacts to audiences without the need to put effort into production or marketing. Art materialises fantasies that keep on developing over time within the artworld – and outside it in various different hands and minds – never striving for definitive products so common to the design field. Like Duchamp said, “art is a game among all men of all eras”, and we take part in it with some Science Poems.

Following the traditional mindset of science fiction, OK Do’s Science Poems project explores the poetry and multi-sensorial aesthetics of science rather than its functionality and logic. This summer, on June 4–6, 2010, it brought together a group of designers and artists for an exhibition at 0fr gallery and bookstore. The weekend also saw the launch of the Science Poems book which explores the topic through images and texts by us and the people around us. The book and the exhibition are now travelling around the world – the latest Science Poems party took place in Helsinki on July 10 at Napa Gallery.

The Science Poems exhibition and book approach science from an artistic perspective, reflecting on psychological and philosophical thoughts without necessarily considering conventional constraints or scientific objectives. In our opinion, applying grids of interpretation, typical of the fields of art and design, to the field of science (and vice versa) can cast new light upon the content and lead to new insights. In the same vein, the exhibition and book aim to function as tools to see and understand or as tools to imagine and question.

Ranging from fashion exploring electromagnetic space to an audio piece derived from DNA base pairs, each piece in the Science Poems exhibition deals with a particular field of natural sciences: astronomy, biology, chemistry, earth sciences, physics or cross-disciplines. The participants are Anna Ahonen & Katariina Lamberg, graphic designers; Kaarle Hurtig & Simo Vassinen, photographer and writer; Martti Kalliala (Renaissance Man), sound artist; K.I. Kinnunen, fashion designer; Miska Knapek, media artist; and Nene Tsuboi, illustrator.

The book, designed by Åh, features discussions with Marc-Olivier Wahler of Palais de Tokyo as well as Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby from the Royal College of Art. It also includes articles about parallel universes, spiritual science or building an ecosystem at home, a talk with a philosopher, a science fiction short story as well as various other poetic writings and images about science by OK Do and friends.

The exhibition and book launched on June 4 in Paris, the home of Alphaville, a 1965 film by Jean-Luc Godard, which inspired us to start Science Poems in the first place. Paris is also the city of a recent artist residency and revisitation of the OK Do members.

Vernissage at 0fr on June 4, 2010.

Science Poems book at the 0fr bookshop.

Science Poems book. Photo courtesy of Paavo Lehtonen.

Science Poems book. Photo courtesy of Paavo Lehtonen.

Science Poems book. Photo courtesy of Paavo Lehtonen.

Science Poems book. Photo courtesy of Paavo Lehtonen.

Science Poems book. Photo courtesy of Paavo Lehtonen.

Nathalie and Windtracing by Miska Knapek at the Science Poems exhibition at 0fr gallery.

People at the Science Poems exhibition at 0fr gallery.

Higgs Boson by Anna Ahonen and Katariina Lamberg at the Science Poems exhibition at 0fr gallery.

The book is available at the 0fr bookshop (20, rue Dupetit-Thouars), La Librairie du Palais de Tokyo (3, avenue du Président Wilson), Librairie Flammarion at the Centre Pompidou (place Georges Pompidou) and Yvon Lambert (108, rue Vieille-du-Temple) in Paris; AA Bookshop (36 Bedford Square), Koenig Books at the Serpentine Gallery (Kensington Gardens), Artwords Bookshop Hackney (20-22 Broadway Market) and b store (24a Savile Row) in London; Kiasma (Mannerheiminaukio 2) and Napa Gallery (Eerikinkatu 18) in Helsinki; do you read me?! (Auguststrasse 28), Pro qm (Almstadtstrasse 48-50) and Motto (Skalitzer Str. 68) in Berlin as well as NEW ACCIDENT (233-1 Jyouhoku) in Komatsu, Ishikawa. Order it online via Napa Books.

Light mandalas from the Light Garden exhibition. Photo by the courtesy of Cosmic Wonder.

Cosmology often manifests as the creation of myths or religions that seek to explain existence and the nature of reality. What does Cosmic Wonder believe in?

We believe in Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science.

The Austrian philosopher (1861-1925), social thinker, architect and esotericist attempted to find a synthesis between science and and mysticism, seeking for a connection between the cognitive path of Western philosophy and the spiritual needs of the human being. He was also a defender of Goethe’s theory of colours arising from the polarity of light and darkness. Like for Steiner, Goethe and colours, light is central to COSMIC WONDER, too?

Yes, we explore light and love in everyday life through our art and fashion. For example, the concept of COSMIC WONDER Light Source fashion project is to dress people with light and, in doing so, produce an environmental effect. And when we say light, we mean many kinds of light – the human body, spirit and soul can also be seen as light. This idea is weaved into COSMIC WONDER Light Source, composed of positive spirit and materials reverberating the light of the natural world.

“We explore light and love in everyday life through our art and fashion.”

Our most recent project with COSMIC WONDER Light Source is The Solar Garden. It is an ecological lifestyle project inspired by the harmonious energy of the Earth and its plants, resulting as a collection of daily and dance clothing made of organic cotton. All products are hand-dyed with herbs such as akane, gardenia, pomegranate, mulberry leaf, rose bengal, catechu, and natural indigo. With The Solar Garden, we want to promote environmental preservation and sustainable ways of making things.

The Solar Garden daily and dance clothing and a COSMIC WONDER FREE PRESS publication. Images by the courtesy of Cosmic Wonder.

The dance wear collection sounds interesting. And Steiner was into dancing, too! Would you say that his and Marie von Sivers’ expressive movement art, eurythmy (or harmonious rhythm), inspired you, or why did you decide to make clothes for dancing?

Dance wear is a tool for opening up one’s spiritual mind and freedom in daily life. All the pieces in the collection are both for men and women because the spiritual mind and freedom do not differ in sex. Moreover, the clothes can be worn in different ways depending on the climate and the mood of the person dancing.

Can you tell me something about the light art?

We have done numerous art projects about light ever since we started the Centers for COSMIC WONDER, the stages for our open-ended activities in Tokyo and Osaka.

For example, Light Construction was a group exhibition presenting installation, video and music, while Light Streams project focused on photography. We’ve also invited artists to organise events. Kim Gordon, for instance, held a meditative Mind/Body Training session with us. Next, we will have an exhibition called Light Garden. It is based on an installation of two mandalas that can be seen as portraits of light, representing the outward-rippling light waves caused by the inward resonances through which the universe exists within us.

Kim Gordon's Mind/Body Training event at the Center for COSMIC WONDER. Photo by the courtesy of Cosmic Wonder.

Like OK Do, you work in free pace and format, doing different things by intuition. Is there a certain philosophy behind the freedom of form and content?

We’ve worked without time restraints for over ten years now, choosing the right time to do things by intuition. The same goes for location. And we reevaluate our activities all the time. The periodical COSMIC WONDER FREE PRESS publication works like a diary, expressing the present state of COSMIC WONDER and COSMIC WONDER Light Source projects through certain themes or topics of research at a given time.

“We’ve worked without time restraints for over ten years now, choosing the right time to do things by intuition. The same goes for location. And we reevaluate our activities all the time.”

All this feels like the natural thing to do, and we appreciate the people who understand the concept of our work. We would like to continue conveying positive messages to the world.