Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects is an exhibition put on by the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

 from July 24 to November 7, 2011. Created by the Department of Architecture and Design, it was widely reviewed and draw large numbers of visitors. The exhibit was organized by Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator in the Department of Architecture and Kate Carmody, curatorial assistant. The exhibition explores and showcases the communications, dialogue and interface between people and machines.

Talk to Me features 194 works by 236 artists, some provide information, others act as gateways or interfaces, still others influences our lives in more subtle subliminal ways. Each object's label includes a QR Code

QR Code

A QR code is a type of matrix barcode first designed for the automotive industry. More recently, the system has become popular outside of the industry due to its fast readability and comparatively large storage capacity. The code consists of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white...

 allowing the visitor to view information on the piece's artist, background information on the piece, read tweets posted by other visitors related to the object and includes connections to other objects in the exhibition with similar themes, design or use.

Exhibition Categories

The exhibition is divided into five categories: Objects, Bodies, Life, City, and Worlds.

• Objects investigates objects, interfaces, and systems that are not just communicative and interactive but also have personalities. Some are conceptual—such as Kacie Kinzer’s Tweenbots , which demonstrate New Yorkers’ irrepressible impulse to help anything or anyone that seems to be lost, even if it is a cardboard robot carrying a little flag—and others functional and functioning, such as the interfaces for the ATM at Barclays or the MetroCard
  MetroCard
  The MetroCard is the payment method for the New York City Subway rapid transit system; New York City Transit buses, including routes operated by Atlantic Express under contract to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority ; MTA Bus, and MTA Long Island Bus systems; the PATH subway system; the...
  
   Vending Machine.

• Bodies focuses on the communication between people by means of objects. The human body and mind are the central agents and subjects of study in this chapter, expressing and explaining themselves in ways previously unthinkable.

• Designers search for the meaning of Life in their own empirical and suggestive ways.

• The City, with its density and complex infrastructures and systems relies on communication for its own sheer survival. This chapter shows the changed role of designers—from creators of form and function to enablers, inspirers, and facilitators—in particular detail.

• In Worlds what most of these technologies have in common is the fact that they are based on systems and rely on network connections, just like the natural world, and understanding their design should be and often is a requirement for those building the elements that come together to constitute these physical and virtual worlds, from designers and architects to engineers and television executives. For those who are not willing or able to understand systems but still need access to them, there are interfaces that function as zones of engagement and exchange.

Art Works

• Cross-fire from the Natural Occurrence series (2010) is an animation directed by Geoffrey Mann and produced by Chris Labrooy. A dinner table is set with plates, cups, and silverware that have motion running through them while an audio that sounds like a general wife to husband argument plays. It is shown to give you the impression of the sounds running through the table set up.

• Eyewriter (2009) is a display that shows video and visual examples of the connection between art and technology. It is based on a graffiti artist who goes by, Tempt1 who was diagnosed with ALS
  ALS
  ALS refers to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's diseaseIt may also refer to:-Medicine:* Advanced life support, a level of medical training* Anterolateral system, part of the nervous system...
  
   in 2003. It prevented him from being able to physically continue his art work in which he began to use new technology that allowed him to use his eye movements in order to continue creating.

• Animal Superpowers: Ant and Giraffe (2008) is a technology that gives a person the ability to have animal senses such as the Ant and/or Giraffe. This display shows a young girl wearing the device that allowed her to see like an ant, magnifying her vision 50 times to giving her the visual perspective of an ant. This display also contains the actual device for viewing purposes.

• Bat Billboard] (2008) by Natalie Jeremijenko
  Natalie Jeremijenko
  Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist and engineer whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering. She is an active member of the net.art movement, and her work primarily explores the interface between society, the environment and technology...
  
  displays a picture of a billboard/ disease-free bat habitat in order to create a bridge between humans and bats. "The billboard inventively reclaims urban infrastructure for animal habitat and also functions as a public face for the bats, translating their habits and activities in a way that humans can understand."

External Links

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/arts/design/momas-talk-to-me-focuses-on-interface-review.html
http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/antonelli.html