full interview_paola antonelli_1.mp3
Paola Antonelli [00:00:00] I'm Paola Antonelli, I'm the Senior Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art and also the founding director of the Research and Development Department.
Speaker 2 [00:00:11] So our series is about how art and science intersect and forms the underpinning of creativity. Can they, sorry about that, can one exist without the other in the art and design?
Paola Antonelli [00:00:31] Can art, and in my case, design, of course, and science exist without each other? Well, you know what? I'm gonna speak about design right now, and I will tell you no. I've always thought, and it's always been like a red thread in my career, that design exists to transform revolutions that happen in science or in politics or in technology into life. So, without designers, many of these revolutions would never percolate down to people's lives. One classic example that I use all the time is the Internet. It used to be lines of code that only some scientists, computer scientists or engineers could use until the designers of the MOSAIC interface came about and all of a sudden... There were windows, there were buttons, there were hyperlinks, and you and I and our grandmother could use the internet. So that's an example, but there are myriad others. So designers really are the translators of anything that happens, any kind of breakthrough of all kinds for people.
Speaker 2 [00:01:36] So we see a number of people talk about the dance that happens between the artist and the technologist or engineer. Scientists, it's evident here in life cycles. Can you comment on that relationship on bringing the artistic vision to life with the help of other disciplines?
Paola Antonelli [00:02:00] It is really fascinating because scientists and artists and scientists and designers are attracted to each other, and at the same time they kind of fear each other with some exceptions. But I can go back to my experience. In 2008, I curated a show here at MoMA called Design and the Elastic Mind that was about design and science without the membrane and the interface of technology. So really trying to see what happens if you put together designers and scientists. As a lead up to the exhibition, I also organized a series of salons with Adam Bly, who was the founder of the magazine Seed at that time, a science magazine. We would bring together, he would offer his best scientists, I, our best designers and architects, and then we would put them together in thematic evenings. And one of the... Funniest evening that I remember was the one devoted to the idea of beauty, right? So it was very very funny because the questions between each other's group verged on the comic, you know, like the designers would ask the scientists, why do you always choose the worst backgrounds and the ugliest typefaces for your presentations? Are you afraid that you might be considered too cute or too... And the scientists were, well, yes, you know, elegance is kind of a third rail in our profession. So it was really very funny because they were sniffing each other like dogs and obviously loving each other, but also being fearful. But by the end of this series of kind of therapeutical sessions, They embraced each other and in the exhibition it was very interesting. There were designers that were hung close to scientists and when they met in the galleries they hugged. I remember in particular two bio-scientists from UCLA hugging this typeface designer from Israel because they were next to each other in the exhibitions. So I think that the interaction is of curiosity. Of a kind of respect and a little fear, but when that firewall breaks, it's boom, an explosion. Anyway, there are some scientists and some designers that are naturally made for each other. I'm thinking, for instance, Tomás Araceno has spent... Months and months and month in a scientific kind of settings like at MIT or Olaf R. Eliasson works a lot with scientists and many many others. I mean we can go on forever and designers, oh my god, that is even closer a relationship. I'm talking a little too long, right? Yeah, sorry, sorry, I need to break them more, so I apologize. Yeah, you have to tell me, Marianne. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 [00:04:54] Are there objects, examples in the world of design that have reached their optimum potential irrespective of advances in technology, objects that simply can't be designed better?
Paola Antonelli [00:05:10] There are many objects that are, I don't even know what perfection is, but close to perfection, and they have reached that apotheosis by themselves, but I do not believe that anything can happen in a vacuum. I'm taking, for instance, one of my favorite design examples, which is the at sign. You could tell that that happened in a historical... Lineage that has nothing to do with science. It comes from the Middle Ages, it was the monks that were copying manuscripts that were saving energy when they were writing the Latin preposition A.D. And then it survived throughout history, used always with the same meaning until it was adopted by Ray Tomlinson in 1971 for the email program. But has that object that There's no materiality that is... A way, a functional way to save energy. Has it remained completely isolated from technology and science? No. And you know why? Because technology and science are cultures, and you cannot be isolated from culture. So I do not believe that science would be where it is today without design, and I don't believe that any design object would be today without science and technology.
Speaker 2 [00:06:29] So, technological innovation has transformed the arts for centuries. It's rejected in the beginning by gatekeepers and traditionalists, photography, cinema, generative art today. Is this also true in design? Do traditional glass blowers push back against 3D printing, for example?
Paola Antonelli [00:06:53] Makers are usually open to new ways of making, you know, it's really, let me re-say it. When it comes to design, makers are usually opened to new way of making. They're curious. And interestingly, when there's brand new technologies and brand new materials, craftsmanship is important because the machines to work these new materials don't exist yet. So I would say that designers and architects and craftspeople are very open to new technology.
Speaker 2 [00:07:22] And, excuse me, what happens when there's pushback? Artists like Steve Koons working with AI and artists like Steve Koon's robots, they create work that the public loves, but sometimes the critics come down hard on them, push back. Does it simply come with the territory for innovators, that kind of pushback and rejection by the critics and establishments?
Paola Antonelli [00:07:52] It is interesting when there's new ways of doing things in art or in design there's always a part of that critical establishment and I'm not talking about the public because the public usually is really keen of the critical establishment that I feel maybe is threatened by the novelty or they don't know yet how to tackle it but you know what they need to understand what the new means of expressions are and realize that art is art and design is design no matter the means that are used to actually make it happen.
Speaker 2 [00:08:30] So in that vein, Robert Hughes in 1980 when he wrote and produced The Shop of the New said that 20th century technology pretty much presided over the death of the avant-garde. Is today's pushback against technologically driven art simply history or criticism repeating themselves, or is there something about technology today new concerns in the 21st century about technology and art.
Paola Antonelli [00:09:04] Every time there's a new technology, there's fear. There's people embracing the new technology. There's peoples fearing the new technology and of course, AI is as scary as can be because, well, it's been declared by many a science fiction writer and also a scientist as a possible demise for humanity. So it's kind of understandable that AI really makes many people tremble. But I feel that as usual, technology is a means to an end. And the end is diagnosing illness in a more efficient way or creating a great work of art. So I feel that we should all judge the end the means are used for and I feel that we shouldn't make sure that citizens are more aware than they are today of what AI can and cannot do so they can exercise their own critical sense.
Speaker 2 [00:09:56] Can technology ever overwhelm the arts? Because more technology than art.
Paola Antonelli [00:10:03] In the hands of any artist or any designer, technology can become the end and not the mean. So that is really something that is about the individual artist and that we can kind of recognize at the end of it all. I'm not even going to think of particular examples but it's happened throughout history that sometimes technology has become more important than what it tries to actuate.
Speaker 2 [00:10:29] So, I'm going to go back to the beginning again. So I can make it a little shorter. I'll just answer about art and science, whether or not one can use without the other in the art.
Paola Antonelli [00:10:42] Art, design, and science cannot exist without each other. And right now, I'm just gonna talk about art, but remember, I always mean design, too. They cannot exist with each other because they need each other to exist. No, I know that it's kind of a game of words, but it's true, because design makes science into life, and science needs design to understand what people really want. So, this is the simplest answer, but they cannot live without each others.
Speaker 2 [00:11:10] Um, what is creativity?
Paola Antonelli [00:11:14] What is creativity? That's a huge huge huge question I can tell you for designers. Designers have a prompt that sometimes comes from the world or comes from their mind but it always is about also other people or other species and then they use all the means at their disposal to reach that end. Creativity is what powers them and talent is what makes sure that that And that goal is realized. In a way that is so elegant that it makes you forget even what all the steps are. That is more than the sum of its parts.
Speaker 2 [00:11:48] And the subject of the two of you creating this... Yeah, I have a question.
Speaker 3 [00:11:52] Yeah, I have another question, and I'm going to begin it. Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay, we're sort of fond of saying, you know, well, technology depends on technology, you know. Yeah. There is, if you talk about how when regular folks think about technology, they sort of think about something that's new. Very good. Yeah. But that's, but if you take the, just our view. Yeah. It's more about the way they carry it.
Paola Antonelli [00:12:19] People tend to think, when you say technology, they tend to think of blinking lights. They tend to thing of AI. They tend think of 3D printing. But in truth, even a pencil is technology, or it used to be advanced technology when it was invented. So technology has existed forever. And even clay making is technology.
Speaker 3 [00:12:40] So just to follow up on that, what we're trying to do, I guess, is we have a whole section. Do you know what the collector deal is?
Paola Antonelli [00:12:51] Collector deal, no.
Speaker 3 [00:12:52] The collector is Belgian, and he has a huge museum in Beijing and he loves the genre of art. In Beijing, huh? Yeah, in Beijing. And he works with General Munoz. So that's a whole section for us. We go around Paris, visiting Dantavier, and see any kind of new technological innovations in art. And so what we're looking for is this idea that... When you step back you see that it is kind of art and design and innovation to continue and process over centuries, right? Oil painting, you know, painting tools, things like that. And so the idea of things like, oh it's very high tech and all that kind of stuff is really a very sort of a narrow, so I don't know, just put it on a historical context. It's always going to be something new, always. Of course.
Paola Antonelli [00:13:50] Technology, technique, you know, just like it's existed forever. And I'm thinking I'm going to bring it home because I'm Milanese. When Leonardo da Vinci decided to experiment with a new technique or technology for the Last Supper, he left us with this big headache and we need to keep it under pressure. So there's always something new. There's always something experimental. Sometimes it overflows into people's lives in a way that maybe might be more threatening like AI. But novelty and innovation and experimentation is part of life.
Speaker 2 [00:14:25] So materials, again, here we are. Is there a broad statement to be made about the relationship that artisan designers have with the materials they choose?
Paola Antonelli [00:14:42] Don't worry, do you need some more? Materials are a means to an end in the design and art interplay and process. So they're also an inspiration. Sometimes designers and artists know exactly what they want to get to, sometimes they don't and the material kind of expresses it to them. But they are a fundamental part of the process and that's why it's very important to focus, especially when it comes to design, on them.
Speaker 2 [00:15:12] So we are doing stories about the intersection of art and technology and science and design with a number of people. You probably know some of them, if not all of them. So I'm going to tell you who they are and I would be interested to have you comment. Iris von Nerven.
Paola Antonelli [00:15:34] Mm-hmm, okay.
Speaker 2 [00:15:35] And her use of new materials.
Paola Antonelli [00:15:39] Let's try the others.
Speaker 2 [00:15:41] Um, Max Lee, do you know Matt? No. He's a paper artist. Mm-hmm. And he's a butler. No. Mm-hm. And he explores physical... Yeah.
Paola Antonelli [00:15:51] Yeah, okay, not well enough. Yeah, let's see. So they're all artists, any? They're all works. Okay.
Speaker 2 [00:15:56] Okay.
Paola Antonelli [00:15:59] Yeah, she's not been nice to me, so I don't want to give her any kind of... Oh, sorry, it's like I'm Italian. I'm italian. Oh, really? And she's now been nice too Neri, so I'm never going to say anything good about her.
Speaker 4 [00:16:16] Sorry!
Speaker 2 [00:16:20] So, I indicated...
Paola Antonelli [00:16:22] If you're not doing Neri, Oxman, she would be great.
Speaker 3 [00:16:26] And give it a little hop, kind of like that.
Speaker 2 [00:16:28] So.
Paola Antonelli [00:16:29] I mean...
Speaker 2 [00:16:31] Yeah, no, she has been covered a lot on film. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 [00:16:38] Alright, we're done.
Paola Antonelli [00:16:38] No, there's like great people and you know about I mean, I don't know. I mean Nick Cave of course I know but I don't know enough to speak of his work Yeah Thank you
Speaker 3 [00:16:50] Well, actually, I'm just going to ask a question, which is, choosing the material that one works in, some people, like Luis Flores, as you may know, I know of her work, yeah. She basically crocheted, okay? Yeah, yeah, of course. Because they didn't show him that medium. Yeah, so a statement about the material. A statement about works, working with it. Okay. So what drives them to make, follow up on this, and make it look effective?
Paola Antonelli [00:17:14] Absolutely. It's beautiful because there's a tradition also amongst architects and designers that the material will tell you what to do and will guide you through life. And there are some artists that develop a wonderful obsession about one material, one technique and explore it through their lifetime. And they give a lot to the world by doing so.
Speaker 2 [00:17:38] Are there enduring materials that can't be improved?
Paola Antonelli [00:17:43] There are some materials that have existed forever. Of course, there are compositions that are different than that. I'm thinking of clay, and it never goes out of, not fashion, but out of need. And stone is the same, and they will exist forever because they are part of our world. But they evolve, the same with wood. You know, these are groupings of materials, and it's our consideration and our attitude towards them that changes more than the materials themselves.
Speaker 3 [00:18:15] Did I do a follow-up to that? Yeah. Do the materials dictate how they want it to use?
Paola Antonelli [00:18:21] The notion that materials dictate how they want to be used is a post-Romantic, but I still consider it Romantic, beginning of the 20th century notion for architecture, and it keeps on going also for designers. I'm not sure that it's true. I think that it is a little hypocritical. We humans tend to manipulate anything, concept, materials, technology that comes our way, and rightly so. So it would be more honest. To say that we want materials to think that we think that they think that they know what we want to do with them.
Speaker 2 [00:18:59] So, you can look at a wood chest starting a project caressing this wood. Some artists just love the material space work with it. Is it essential or is it sometimes pragmatic?
Paola Antonelli [00:19:17] It is essential to believe or to think that the material in front of you can reveal either an object or a whole research. I'm thinking of the work of Forma Fantasma, for instance, who focused on materials and really used these materials to understand the world. They did a beautiful exhibition at the Serpentine called Cambio that was all about wood and the timber industry, for example. Some materials can guide you towards an object. Towards a whole line of objects or towards a deeper understanding of the world. And they would be great for you, by the way. Have you ever seen their work? I mean, I don't know how much time you have, but they are...
Speaker 2 [00:20:01] We'll come back to materials when we take it back around the gallery.
Speaker 5 [00:20:07] I'm just curious, when it comes to form and function, playing together in design, you know, this is sort of a human question, but a table could be a flipped over cardboard box, but for some reason, there's a desire to get something beautiful. Can you just speak to why you add that form to function when you're designing something? Why that's important?
Paola Antonelli [00:20:31] Can I be very, very frank? It's a very limited reading of design. So I would, it would not make you look good. So no, that's what I'm saying because the format, I'm seeing it with like total respect, but the idea that design is form and function and that design as a table and the beauty.
Speaker 5 [00:20:52] A little bit. Okay.
Paola Antonelli [00:20:58] Okay, all right, that's very different. Thank you so much. One of the goals of all design goes way beyond the idea of function or formful, function or all the adage that we've heard about design. And it's about adding something to the world. Now, why is form so important when you add something to a world? Well, because form is a means of communication and it's a form of respect. And the opposite of ugly is not, sorry, sorry. It's the opposite. Why do humans make things and why do they try to make them beautiful? Well, it's very simple. Function is not enough. Of course, we can all sit on a stone and that might be also beautiful. But it's to reach some adding something to the world and to reach beauty and elegance. And that's because beauty intended as a form. Let me go back. So this is a complicated one. Sorry. Why do we try to make objects that are not only functioning, but also elegant? And why do we care about form? Well, form is a means of communication. Nature teaches it to us. And beauty is important as an addition to the world. And the opposite of beautiful is not ugly, but rather it's lazier and different. So. We need to try and communicate to other humans, other species, and to the world by means of form. Okay. Sorry that I had misunderstood your question.
Speaker 2 [00:22:43] So video games, where do video games lie in the great sweet ocean floor?
Paola Antonelli [00:22:51] Video games are a universe onto their own. They are a place where many people live. They are form of expression that is at the same time cinematic and graphic and illustrative and architectural. You can really place all of the different studies that we've done in the arts into the realm of video games and start anew.
Speaker 2 [00:23:15] So far they aren't.
Paola Antonelli [00:23:18] Some video games are art, some video games are design, some videos games, no, let me go back. All video games are art, and all video games are design, and video games all film. So you can tackle them from different angles. And sometimes they fail as art, right? Any object can be considered or can be appreciated as art and then cast aside. And the same with video games.
Speaker 2 [00:23:44] Have video games expanded the notion of art and design?
Paola Antonelli [00:23:51] Video games have expanded the notion of creativity and the notion of art, design and architecture in a way that is impossible to sum up. It's really an opening onto a new world. That could become a world we inhabit even more in the future.
Speaker 2 [00:24:10] So what would you tell someone who's not familiar with video games, or is a skeptic, how and why games are hard?
Paola Antonelli [00:24:23] I would never approach anybody saying video games are art. I would just approach somebody who's skeptical by saying just open up this door, pretend that you're going into a new home, a new museum, a public space, and think about it that way. Just think of your experience. Whether you will see it as art or as interior design or as design is up to you. Don't give it labels yet, just try it.
Speaker 2 [00:24:51] So at what point did MoMA recognize video games as something museum-worthy?
Paola Antonelli [00:24:59] In 2006, I've been here way too long, but in 2006 we organized a meeting behind closed doors with about 12 different luminaries of the design and film world to think about our collection of graphic design because it was only posters and LP covers. And that's where we came up with new categories that we should explore. Among them were film titles, for instance, or typefaces, and one of them was also video games. So we started in 2006, and then we got ready and we began the collection in 2010.
Speaker 2 [00:25:37] Are there particular criteria when you select a game for the collection?
Paola Antonelli [00:25:42] Selecting video games for the design collection follows criteria that are specific to design. We think, of course, of space because we consider it an architectural space. We think of the formal expression. We think the design of the experience, the interaction, how people flow, how they use the controller. So there is also a hardware consideration, not only software, and we also think of what it adds to the world, because that's how we're. Secret ingredient in the recipe of what goes into the design collection. Does it add something to the world that the world would otherwise have missed?
Speaker 2 [00:26:22] So interactivity, in part, is not new. Some would consider the music box, for example, like 1700s. How have video games changed and expanded the notion of interactivity?
Paola Antonelli [00:26:41] The interactivity that happens with video games is a new form of the interactivity with art and design that has happened since the beginning of humankind. It is different because it's digital in most cases, or at least the video games that we acquired in the collection are digital. And therefore requires a mediation that is usually through a piece of hardware that could be a button or could be joystick. So, it's a different mediation because it requires... Almost like a cyborg extension of the body.
Speaker 2 [00:27:16] Is there, um, hands-on is the word that comes to my mind when you look at other forms of interactive art, maybe in space. But video games are much more tactile in a way.
Paola Antonelli [00:27:31] When it comes to video games, there's a tactility, or I'm also thinking of different forms of interfaces for people that are paralyzed. And we have one also in the collection that uses eyeball to track and command a digital world. So the tactility is always mediated with video games. You know, it's either a touch screen that's the most directing, or it's a joystick, or a button. But there's always a kind of path or a bridge that humans have to cross. And we're always amazed by how some kids don't even see that bridge anymore and live in that world.
Speaker 2 [00:28:10] So video games are really innovative in terms of design. Do you have some examples you can give us of particularly innovative games in terms of the artfulness and the design?
Paola Antonelli [00:28:27] We have 35 video games in the MoMA collection, and I would say that pretty much every single one of them was a breakthrough. Amongst my favorite is Tempest, who is a game from the 80s that used vector graphics in as amazing a way as possible to give this sense really of depth. Dave Toirer, the designer, really made it sure. Sorry, let me go back. Wait, I want to check the exact, would you mind for me checking the year of campus?
Speaker 3 [00:29:03] That's fine. You also don't have to go back to the beginning of the statement. We can edit. Yeah.
Paola Antonelli [00:29:08] Yeah, no, I know, but I'm checking just I want to make sure that it's I think it's from the 80s But I want make sure this night 91 Maya's checking
Speaker 4 [00:29:16] Okay, sounds right.
Paola Antonelli [00:29:20] Oh, thank you, Jack.
Speaker 3 [00:29:31] Shall we go to another question while we're at it? Yeah, let's do that, okay.
Speaker 2 [00:29:36] So, video games have come a long way. We've been around for a while. Are there particular benchmarks in the evolution that have gotten us to today's game, to the video games?
Paola Antonelli [00:29:50] Okay, 81, so I was right. The benchmarks for the world of video games are many and they usually come also with technology. I would say that it's the use of technology that the various gamers have made that makes them into milestones. In 1981, Dave Thorter and Tempest and the use vector graphics. Vector graphics existed, but the way they were used in this particular game to create spatial effect. Was really quite amazing, or the maze plan of Pac-Man that was also a breakthrough. So we could go through and become very granular, but every time there's an innovation in a chip or an innovation on screens, there's video gamers, video game designers that actually try to exploit it and create new milestones.
Speaker 2 [00:30:45] Are video games increasingly artful these days?
Paola Antonelli [00:30:52] What does artful mean? It's so artistic. It depends on what you mean by artistic. Can I make a...
Speaker 3 [00:31:02] Is there a sense of striving for, I mean the early games were like taunting and it was just, isn't this cool, I don't know what the technology can do, but now there seems to be, for example, a much more sort of ambitious cinematic thread.
Paola Antonelli [00:31:19] I don't like, I don, sorry, I believe that design, between us and off the record, I believe that the design is higher than art. So I don't believe that that design aspires to be art, so I think that Pong was up there. So I can make the differentiation between commercial and indie if you want. So indie gamers have... Lower stakes and therefore, so that's to me the difference. Throughout the history of video games, there's been video games that were made for the world, for the commercial world, you know, I'm thinking of Pac-Man and the lack of 100 yen coins in Japan at some point because everybody was using them for Pac-man. And instead games have been indie, so outside of the studio system, instead meant to experiment new forms of expression. And that continues today. There are video games right now that are franchises. It's an industry that is worth trillions of dollars. And then there are video game that instead are indie, and there are artists that are experimenting with the video game technology.
Speaker 3 [00:32:31] Okay, so my follow-up, and this is a strange question, but this is the conversation we had with game designers that talked about art. And they feel like a certain way they have to prove themselves. I know, unfortunately we're still dealing with that world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and they often bring up the parallel of cinema. You know, I was a cinema major 50 years ago, and it was still a little bit like going to college to watch movies, you know, that kind of thing. So, can you draw, can make a parallel for the 21st century versus the 20th? If you think about where cinema was in 1925, and had so much further evolve. Okay. Here are really the updates in that time. Like, are we just at the beginning? Are we emerging from the silent movie era? I understand what you're saying.
Paola Antonelli [00:33:13] I understand what you're saying. I can make it from the curatorial viewpoint. Video games are a relatively new realm. I mean the oldest video games that I know is collectible is from 1957, right? So the appreciation in museums even younger and I can go back to the beginning of MoMA. It was so groundbreaking to have in a museum, photography, film and other media also and other categories that were not really considered art yet by the rest of the world. Where I believe that MoMA and the Victorian Albert and the Smithsonian, the museums that right now are tackling video games either as art or as design are setting the basis for a category that will be developed, will become a normal category in all museums of art in the future. Is that okay for you? Yeah. Okay, great.
Speaker 2 [00:34:07] Is there a particular game or game that when you first saw them fit in well?
Paola Antonelli [00:34:17] I have to go back. Amongst video games that really struck me, I have to go back to Tempest. Because I'm a design person, and I know that designers that use technology well are the best designers. They're my holy grails. Tempests is amazing because it's just lines that are used by Dave Thorer to create a whole world with like five dimensions. So it always struck me as... An incredible use of the design and of the technology available at that time, which is 1981.
Speaker 2 [00:34:58] Are you familiar with the journey?
Paola Antonelli [00:35:01] Of course, Journey is in the collection after. It's in the collections. Yeah, Journey's in it. We have Temp, yeah, Journey also in the Collection. Can you check just to make sure, because we have a lot of pieces by Genova.
Speaker 3 [00:35:13] I don't know if that's funny. OK. Sorry.
Speaker 2 [00:35:17] We're filming, sorry, we're filming.
Paola Antonelli [00:35:21] That's okay, thank you. Jenova Chen is one of the greatest designers and artists, shall I redo it? Is it in the collection? Oh my god, let me check.
Speaker 3 [00:35:39] It really doesn't matter which one of you you're feeling more comfortable with. I mean, we interviewed Jennifer.
Paola Antonelli [00:35:45] Jenova Chen is one of the greatest artists, designers, cinematographers, in all the synthesis of skills that go into video games that I know. And his video games have this quality of really taking you by hand and guiding you into places that you didn't know existed. And Journey is a great example of that. It's actually a journey. And the fact that the role of the player becomes just an actor in this whole great. Is it? Yeah, okay, it's in the collection of this title. So, sometimes they take you, sometimes, sometimes. Yeah. The fact that this is an actual journey, that it's called Journey, makes it even more amazingly enthralling, right? You don't have to compete, you just have to go. You just have let go and to experience. That's a new way of thinking of video games.
Speaker 2 [00:36:48] Because usually it's too walk-around.
Speaker 5 [00:36:50] Okay.
Speaker 2 [00:36:58] Um...
Speaker 5 [00:37:00] I'm gonna do it now.
Speaker 2 [00:37:00] So, tell us a little bit about light sprinkles, and sort of in short sentences, comment on how the materials used are transforming art and design, and in particular, Neri's glasswork and banjo, and the 2D printed person wear.
Paola Antonelli [00:37:31] Life Cycles is an exhibition about the way contemporary designers think of materials and use them. It is titled Life Cycles because while once upon a time, and I'm thinking of my first show at MoMA 95, materials were used by designers for their performance because they were innovative. Today, designers think of materials as whole life cycles, where they're coming from and where they are gonna end. In other words, the object is only a moment in the cycle of materials. Materials come from a place where they have been extracted by people according to practices that are either just or not, and at the end of the life of the object, they will go back to the earth. How? Where? Will they suffocate the earth, or will they give back to it?
Speaker 2 [00:38:31] So you, in the introduction to the show, you talk about objects that pair advanced technologies with time-honored craft techniques. Would you comment about that marrying of new and old?
Paola Antonelli [00:38:49] One of the most beautiful objects in the exhibition that really demonstrates the fact that sometimes you can use new technologies to actually go back and understand traditional ones is by Markus Kaiser. It's this beautiful vessel that's made using the sand of the Sahara Desert and the beams of the sun. It's 3D printing. It looks like 3D-printing. It has an exquisitely contemporary aspect, but it's made use sand and sun. Some elements that have existed forever and that are melted as if they were glass or ceramics. Did you see it? Because that's also quite beautiful, if you want. It's that little vessel over here. It's really gorgeous. And also the video, if want to intersperse something. Sorry if I went to objects that you hadn't chosen, but it's just so gorgeous too.
Speaker 2 [00:39:45] Tell us a little bit about 3D Blast.
Paola Antonelli [00:39:51] Nelly Oxman is a wonderful contemporary designer and architect and she has experienced a lot with materials. And one of the innovations that she's brought to life is a glass 3D printer. Why is a 3D glass printer complicated? Well, because you have to keep the temperature really, really, high and you have think of how the glass cools, the viscosity. You have to make sure you take all that into consideration so that it doesn't break or it doesn't become too liquid. So it's a very precise and granular kind of technology to make objects that are gorgeous and that bring together the materials. It's a wonderful, innovative technology that brings together 3D printing, absolutely contemporary, and the material as ancient as glass.
Speaker 2 [00:40:44] Do you have other favorites in this room?
Paola Antonelli [00:40:47] There are so many. I could talk about the work of Ibevanshi, who is The cabbage chair, I love, you're right, but it's more, no, I, but Ibe is one of the, or Adi Nugraha, yeah, let's talk about Adi and Ibe, because they're two of the most recent, and then Forma Fantasma. I'm gonna give you those three. One of the poster children of the exhibition is by Adi Ngraha who's an Indonesian designer. He uses cow dung, which is very readily available and abundant in his island. To make shows of lamps and loudspeakers. So it's a beautiful way to think of building with the materials that are available around you and make gorgeous objects. Yves Vanchy is a very young Dutch designer, he's just out of school and actually we acquired – no, we didn't acquire it yet – Yves is a young Dutch design, just out of school, and we noticed his work, which is done with a 3D printer that almost mixed ceramics, we noticed it in his end of the year show. At the Design Academy in Eindhoven, and we wanted to acquire it. So he's one of these designers that are obsessed with the material and with the technique. He developed the 3D printer, he developed the code to make the objects happen, he developed all the type of ceramics that he uses, and the objects are gorgeous. And that's Forma Fantasma. I really want to talk about them because to me they are the best. Forma Fantasma is a duo of Italian designers and in the exhibition they have one chair that is a Trojan horse to lead to a larger conversation about the dark underbelly of the electronic waste system. The chair is gorgeous, all done with leftovers, electronic waste, pieces of electronic phones and computers. And it just leads you to the platform where then you get to understand more about how we recycle or not electronic waste.
Speaker 2 [00:43:08] Marriott, I was so sorry, I know.
Speaker 3 [00:43:13] Yeah, this is an overall question because you talked about romanticizing materials. One of our stories has to do with the development of a glass symbol that gets performed by Todd Backover. I don't know if you've done that. Oh yeah, I know.
Paola Antonelli [00:43:29] Oh yeah, yeah, of course. Oh, a symbol, oh yeah, okay, yeah yeah, no no no. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 [00:43:34] And basically, for this film, they developed a 26-inch enormous glass symbol, and he performed it, and he finally has to perform it as he breaks it. So it has to be relevant, but it also has to... And the woman that he was working with was already lost in London, was like, break the symbol, because I'm really interested in the glass, and odd was like weeping, because he didn't want to break it. Of course. So I don't know if there's anything about how we relate to things in the world, and get attached to them, I don't know, but it's an open-ended question.
Paola Antonelli [00:44:09] Talking about romanticizing materials, I mean, the classic concept that I'm sure will come to mind to many is Michelangelo, just like telling the piece of marble to tell, no sorry, the classic example that would come to mind is Michelangelos saying that there's a sculpture already in the block of marble and it just wants to come out, so that's a way to think about it. But I think that it's all healthy, you know, it's very healthy of designers and artists to romanticize materials, because, once again, it is a way forward, and we never work in a vacuum, and neither do designers and architects and artists.
Speaker 5 [00:44:51] I have one more quick question. So, you know, the balance of art and science generally, art and science.
Paola Antonelli [00:44:57] That'll
Speaker 5 [00:44:58] the balance in our culture. I think often times science is looked as essential for a number of reasons and art can be seen as more of a luxury. You know, you talked about art and science, but can you defend art a little bit in our society? Oh yeah, of course.
Paola Antonelli [00:45:16] I have a big chip on my shoulder, I've always had it, because science, technology, or finance are considered so fundamental to the destinies of society, and instead art and culture can just be thrown out of the window as soon as there's a budget problem. And I've always resented the idea of STEM being important. I was very happy when the A was added and it became STEAM. And I would like to add a D and call it STEAMed, because I think that design also should be added. And I don't know what it's going to take for people, and especially for the powers that be to understand that art and culture are the way forward. Without them, nobody, not scientists, not design. Thank you. I don't know what it's going to take to make the powers that be realize that without art and culture, science, finance, politics are going nowhere.
Speaker 2 [00:46:17] Do you have a sense of any artists or designers who are informing scientific practices, relationships between artists and scientists?
Paola Antonelli [00:46:29] You're asking if some artists are doing so.
Speaker 2 [00:46:32] Do you have a sense that that happens in our society?
Speaker 4 [00:46:36] Thank you.
Paola Antonelli [00:46:38] Okay, thank you. I'm going to answer this last. Scientists and artists are kept naturally separate unless they're brought together. And usually that happens with the will of institutions. I'm thinking of CERN bringing scientists in residence or Caltech in California or MIT. So it really is something that happens. In academia mostly and in some cases in institutions that are outside of academia. It should happen at the level of policy making. I hope that that will happen in the future but right now we're not there yet, at least not in the United States. I would like to do more research to see if there are countries where artists and designers are actually at the seat in government. I'm sure there are.
