Action! Design over Time

The Museum of Modern Art - MoMA

Friday 05 February 2010 to Sunday 01 January 2012
Objects are not still. And yet design is often considered in terms of static aesthetic and functional qualities, without much consideration of trajectory in time or relationships with people. The objects presented in Action! Design over Time reveal the often overlooked dimension of temporality, providing a deeper understanding of contemporary design.

Some of these objects embody frozen moments in time, whether crafted by hand (like Ingo Maurer’s Porca Miseria! chandelier, which is made of broken dishes) or crystallized by a computer using a digital manufacturing machine (as with Ammar Eloueini’s CoReFab chair). Instead of a single moment, other featured objects capture entire lifecycles; Christien Meindertsma’s book PIG 05049 tracks all 185 products made from a single pig. Some examples focus on communication and interaction design, whose nature is inherently connected to time. These interfaces and visualizations interpret and render data over time—commercial air traffic across the United States, taxi traffic in San Francisco, or the editorial evolution of Wikipedia entries, for instance—in an elegant and efficient way.

Location

The Museum of Modern Art - MoMA
11 West 53 Street
Midtown Manhattan Precinct
New York
United States
The Honeycomb Vase "Made by Bees". 2006
© All rights reserved The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Aaron and Betty Lee Stern Foundation 2010 United States
Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny Beeswax Manufactured by Studio Libertíny, The Netherlands
Digital Remains, 2006
© All rights reserved The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Marva Griffin-Wilshire 2010 United States
Michele Gauler, Design Interactions Department, est. 1989. Royal College of Art, UK, est. 1837 Aluminum, wood, acrylic, and electronic media. Each: 3/4 x 2 3/4" (1.9 x 7 cm)
All the Robots. 2007
© All rights reserved The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the Speyer Family Foundation Photographer: Per Tingleff 2010 United States
Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby, and Noam Toran. Dunne & Raby UK, est. 1994 Video (color, sound)
Flight Patterns, 2005
© All rights reserved The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the designer 2010 United States
Aaron Koblin, Department of Design | Media Artd , USA, est. 1994 School of the Arts and Architecture at University of California, Los Angeles USA, est. 1966 Quicktime video (color)
Materialecology, 2007
© All rights reserved The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Ar 2010 United States
Neri Oxman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, est. 1861. Z Corporation, USA, Subterrain: Coded FEA, Rhinoceros, and Generative Components software; CNC milled laminated oak and cherry wood. Monocoque: Rhinoceros and Generative Components software; full cure digital materials Vero White and Tango Black, acrylic based photopolymers, and plaster resin composite. Raycounting: Rhinoceros and Generative Components software; photo reactive liquid resin SL 7510 and nylon 12. Cartesian Wax: Rhinoceros and Generative Components software; ultra low viscosity urethane rubber, semi rigid polyurethane casting resin composite, and machinable wax
I Want You To Want Me. 2007-ongoing
© All rights reserved The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art on occasion of the exhi 2010 United States
Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar. Number 27 USA, est. 2002, C++, OpenGL, Java, MySQL, touch-screen monitor. Music by Stars. 53 x 34 x 8" (134.6 x 86.4 x 20.3 cm)
GROW. 2005
© All rights reserved Picture Credit: © SMIT - Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology, LLC 2010 United States
Samuel Cabot Cochran and Benjamin Wheeler Howes, SMIT Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology, LLC Thin film photovoltaics, piezoelectric generators, screen printed conductive ink encapsulated in ETFE fluoropolymer lamination, stainless steel, nylon, neoprene rubber, copper wire, and aluminum. 16 x 8' The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Marie-Josée Kravis