Design enables many kinds of conversations. We interact with objects when we unleash their function, but there is also an unspoken message, one that appeals to our senses. On Sunday, July 24th the Museum of Modern Art New York presents Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects curated by Paola Antonelli and Kate Carmody in the Department of Architecture and Design. Over 200 objects, whether iconic, contemporary or in development enable visitors to closely consider the level of intimacy we share with furniture, products and technology.
Rather than grouping items together according to physical or functional attributes, the exhibition is organized by what these objects communicate. Sometimes the city is talking to you and sometimes it is life speaking with you. Upon entering Talk to Me, one is confronted by Talking Carl, an iPad application that literally speaks to the user in words and giggles. Yet many other products from Braun’s Lectron System to Herzog and De Meuron’s Allianz Arena, speak to us subliminally by comforting us, educating us and activating the senses.
Talk to Me, on view from July 24 – November 7, 2011, demonstrates the inherent power of technology to humanize the object.
July 2011
