Design and the Elastic Mind Paola Antonelli Design and the ... · Design and the Elastic Mind 14 Paola Antonelli History is punctuated by uproariously wrong predictions made by savvy

14Design and the Elastic MindPaola Antonelli

History is punctuated by uproariously wrongpredictions made by savvy individuals blindsided byprogress: Ferdinand Foch, Marshal of France in theearly part of the twentieth century, stated in1911 that airplanes were interesting toys of nouse for the military; movie producer Darryl F.Zanuck forecast in 1946 the demise of television;and Ken Olsen, of Digital Equipment Corporation,dismissed in 1977 the idea that anyone would wantto keep a computer at home. Revolutions are noteasy on us, especially when they occur as rapidlyand as frequently as they have in the past 150years. A few exceptional individuals are alreadywired for change, and the masses have a tendencyto either admire them as visionaries or burn themat the stake as witches and heretics. However,these individuals do not represent the majority. In order to step boldly into the future, themajority needs design.

Adaptability is an ancestral distinction of humanintelligence, but today’s instant variations inrhythm call for something stronger: elasticity. The by-product of adaptability + acceleration,elasticity is the ability to negotiate change and innovation without letting them interfereexcessively with one’s own rhythms and goals. It means being able to embrace progress, under -standing how to make it our own. One of design’smost fundamental tasks is to help people deal with change. Designers stand between revolutionsand everyday life. They study and appreciate

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15 people’s strengths and insecurities, their need for easy access to objects and systems and theircautiously adventurous wishes—a little frissona day is acceptable but anything more becomesoverwhelming. Designers have the ability to graspmomentous changes in technology, science, andsocial mores and to convert them into objects andideas that people can understand and use. Withoutdesigners, instead of a virtual city of home pageswith windows, doors, buttons, and links, the Inter -net would still be a series of obscure strings ofcode,1 all cars would look like technolo gically updatedModel Ts, and appliances would be reduced tostand ardized skeletons. Without a visual designtranslation, many funda mental concepts—such as thescope of the human genome or its comparison withthat of other primates (see p. 142)—would remainungraspable by most. Designers give life and voiceto objects, and along the way they manifest ourvisions and aspirations for the future, even thosewe do not yet know we have.

Each new technological era brings its own malady,a sense of displacement that inevitably accom pa -nies innovation—that is why innovation is oftendisruptive. Like East Germans after the fall of the Berlin Wall, some feel nostalgia for a morecomfortable, albeit less progressive, past. Let’scount today’s disruptions: We routinely live atdifferent scales, in different contexts, and atdifferent settings—Default, Phone-only, Avatar On,Everything Off—on a number of screens, each withits own size, interface, and resolution, and acrossseveral time zones. We change pace often, makecontact with diverse groups and individuals,

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16sometimes for hours, other times for minutes,using means of communication ranging from the mostencrypted and syncopated to the most discursiveand old-fashioned, such as talking face-to-face—or better, since even this could happen virtually,let’s say nose-to-nose, at least until smells aretrans lated into digital code and trans ferred toremote stations. We isolate ourselves in the middleof crowds within individual bubbles of technology,or sit alone at our compu ters to tune intocommuni ties of like-minded souls or to accessinformation about esoteric topics.

Over the past twenty-five years, under theinfluence of such milestones as the introduction of the personal computer, the Internet, andwireless technology, we have experienced dramaticchanges in several mainstays of our existence,especially our rapport with time, space, thephysical nature of objects, and our own essence as individuals. In order to embrace these newdegrees of freedom, whole categories of productsand services have been born, from the first clockswith mechanical time-zone crowns to the mostrecent devices that use the Global PositioningSystem (GPS) to automatically update the time the moment you enter a new zone. Our optionswhen it comes to the purchase of such productsand services have multiplied, often with an emphasison speed and automation (so much so that goodold-fashioned cash and personalized transactions—the option of talking to a real person—now carrythe cachet of luxury). Our mobility has increasedalong with our ability to communicate, and so hasour capacity to influence the market with directfeedback, making us all into arbiters and opinionmakers. Our idea of privacy and private propertyhas evolved in unexpected ways, opening the door

top: James Powderly, Evan Roth,Theo Watson, and HELL. Graffiti Research Lab. L.A.S.E.R.Tag. Prototype. 2007. 60 mW greenlaser, digital projector, camera,and custom GNU software (L.A.S.E.R.Tag V1.0, using OpenFrameworks)

New forms of communicationtranscend scale and express ayearning to share opinions andinformation. This project simulateswriting on a building. A cameratracks the beam painter of a laser pointer and software trans mitsthe action to a very powerfulprojector.

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17 for debates ranging from the value of copyright to the fear of ubiquitous surveillance.2 Softwareglitches aside, we are free to journey throughvirtual-world platforms on the Internet. In fact,for the youngest users there is almost no differ -ence between the world contained in the computerscreen and real life, to the point that some digitalmetaphors, like video games, can travel backwardinto the physical world: At least one company,called area/code, stages “video” games on a largescale, in which real people in the roles of, say, PacMan play out the games on city streets using mobilephones and other devices.

Design and the Elastic Mind considers thesechanges in behavior and need. It highlights currentexamples of successful design translations ofdisruptive scientific and technological innova tions,and reflects on how the figure of the designer ischanging from form giver to funda mental interpreterof an extraordinarily dynamic reality. Leading up tothis volume and exhibition, in the fall of 2006 TheMuseum of Modern Art and the science publicationSeed launched a monthly salon to bring togetherscientists, designers, and architects to presenttheir work and ideas to each other. Among themwere Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch, whosepresentation immediately following such a giant ofthe history of science as Benoit Mandelbrot wasnothing short of heroic, science photographer FeliceFrankel, physicist Keith Schwab, and computa tionaldesign innovator Ben Fry, to name just a few.3

Indeed, many of the designers featured in thisbook are engaged in exchanges with scientists,including Michael Burton and Christopher Woebken,whose work is influenced by nanophysicist Richard A. L. Jones; Elio Caccavale, whose inter lo cutor isArmand Marie Leroi, a biologist from the Imperial

bottom: James Powderly, EvanRoth, Theo Watson, DASK, FOXYLADY, and BENNETT4SENATE. Graffiti Research Lab. L.A.S.E.R.Tag graffiti projection system.Prototype. 2007. 60 mW greenlaser, digital projector, camera,custom GNU software (L.A.S.E.R.Tag V1.0, using OpenFrameworks),and mobile broadcast unit

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18College in London; and the designers from Loop.pH,who are working on a project with John Walker, thewinner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.4

As Hugh Aldersey-Williams discusses in his essay inthis volume, the exploration of the promising relation-ship between science and design is of particularrelevance. While technology still traditionally actsas the interface, the conversation between designand science has become more direct and focused.What the computer has done for designers, thenanoscale is doing for scientists: It is giving them a whole new taste of the power of unobstructeddesign and manufacture. In an outstanding essay in the 2006 book Sensorium: Embodied Experience,Technology, and Contemporary Art, Peter Galisonintroduces the concept of “nano facture”:“Nanoscientists want to know what devices they canmake....In the halls of ‘pure’ science, such a prag -matic stance toward the real is still relative ly new.Indeed, it is an extraordinary and extra ordinarilydisturbing alteration of the practice of research,and in the very self-definition of what it means to be a scientist.”5 Scientists Thomas G. Mason andCarlos J. Hernandez, architecture firm Aranda/Lasch, nanotechnologist Paul W. K. Rothemund, anddesigner James King are examples of those engagingin an embryonic dialogue between design and sciencethat is bound to change the world.

Fundamental to this dialogue is the appreciationof the role of scale in contemporary life. Twoessays, the first by nanophysicist Ted Sargent andthe second by visualization design expert PeterHall, describe the ways in which scientists anddesigners tackle the extremely small and theextremely large in order to bring them to a humanscale. Last comes my own essay about scale, albeitof the social kind, which discusses the remarkablenew relationship between the individual and thecollective sphere and the effects it is having onthe theory and practice of our built environment.

All of these essays are accompanied by examples

below and bottom: Dick Powell andRichard Smith. Seymourpowell.SpaceShipTwo: Interior for VirginGalactic Spaceship. Concept. 2006

Steamships, trains, telephones, and airplanes changed our sense of scale and our rapport with timeand space. Suborbital flight willsoon push us even farther.

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19 of singular design creativity that introduce newareas of study and influence as well as the newtypes of functional gradients that designers aretrying to endow objects with, taking their cuesfrom sources as varied as nanostructures, biolo g -ical systems, topography, and cosmology. The goal is to facilitate as seamless a movement as possiblefrom fast to slow, virtual to physical, cerebral tosensual, automatic to manual, dynamic to static,mass to niche, global to local, organic to inorganic,and proprietary to common, to mention just a fewextreme couplings. Some examples are by bona fidedesigners, others by scientists and artists whohave turned to design to give method to theirproductive tinkering, what John Seely Brown hascalled “thinkering.”6 They all belong to a new culturein which experimentation is guided by engagement with the world and open, constructive collabo-r ation with colleagues and other specialists.

Design 1:1Today, many designers have turned several latetwentieth-century infatuations on their heads,for instance with speed, dematerialization, minia -turi zation, and a romantic and exaggerated formalexpression of complexity. After all, there is a limitbeyond which micro-keyboards are too small for aperson’s fingers and complexity simply becomestoo overwhelming. Examples abound in all fields ofpeople’s desire to return to what is perceived as ahuman dimension, including gastro nomy (the SlowFood movement), agriculture (organic produce),travel (ecotourism), production of energy (distri -bu ted generation), economic aid (microinvestment),and politics (the town hall meeting), to name just a few.7 These all revolve around the idea thatglobal issues should be tackled bottom-up and that an individual or local spark can start a power -ful chain reaction with global implications.

The most contemporary of design theory is de vot edto the quest for an environment, whether virtual

Johan Liden and aruliden. MotorolaSparrow RFID (Radio FrequencyIdentification) scanning device.Concept. 2006-ongoing. Injection-molded plastic, glass, and aluminum, 2 3/4 x 2 3/4 x 1/2" (7 x 7 x 103 cm)

The time has come to take control ofthe dozens of features available forportable devices. Getting more infor -mation on the surrounding context—whether commercial, cultural, or geo -graphic—is a function that will presumablybecome more and more important.

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20or physical, built in human proportion—much the way in architecture a hypothetical 1:1 model wouldrepresent buildings as life size. Designers whobelieve in this preach simplicity, and they labor togive objects souls and personality and to easetheir communication with people and with otherobjects.8 They apply the same bottom-up metho d -ology to spawn innovations that are organicallyattuned to human nature and to the world, andthey rework priorities so that human beings alwayscome before any celebration of progress, as in the project One Laptop per Child or in JonathanHarris’s moving Internet interface We Feel Fine.These designers domesticate innovation and makesure that objects will deliver value and meaning andtherefore justify their presence in people’s lives,as with Mathieu Lehanneur’s delica tely high-techElements. And out of consideration for people’swell-being, they help us incorporate healthybehaviors within our frenetic habits, as seen inMarie-Virginie Berbet’s Narco office capsule.

The idea of human scale has changed sinceCharles and Ray Eames’s famous 1968 film Powers of Ten because human perception has been expand -ed and augmented by technology. Distance is notwhat it used to be, and neither is time: Not onlydoes it range from the attosecond (10-18 seconds,or the time it takes for light to travel the lengthof three hydrogen atoms) to the Long Now, theconcept that inspired Danny Hillis to establish a foundation whose goal is to promote thinking for the next ten thousand years,9 but some pro -fes sionals’ routine commute is a twice-a-monthTokyo–New York round-trip while others workacross several time zones without a need to statetheir position at any time. Indeed, where and whenhave become hard to pin down on any who.10 There is a standoff between the two ancient Greeknotions of time: chronos, the shared convention of sequential time marked by the sundial, and kairos,the subjective moment that allows an individual to adapt and evolve with circumstances. While noone would argue that we are beholden to theformer, the shift toward the latter is seen in theurge to record and share personal, life-definingmoments that is at the source of the proliferation

Farshid Guilak and Franklin Moutos.Orthopaedic Bioengineer ingLaboratory, Duke UniversitySchool of Medicine. 3-D wovenscaffolds for tissue regeneration.2001–07. Poly(glycolic acid) fibersor poly(e-caprolactone) fibers,woven fiber scaffold: 1 1/8 x 11 3/4 x 1/32" (3 x 30 x 0.1 cm);weaving machine: 23 5/8 x 39 3/8 x39 3/8" (60 x 100 x 100 cm)

Scientists study textile weavingand other crafts techniques inorder to better design and performtheir experiments.

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21 of Web logs and other tagged and mapped meta -diaries. This obsessive chronicling of personalinformation online—from pets’ names to breakfastpreferences, the phenomenon of over-sharing isfrequent and is the subject of several etiquette-themed discussions—points to people’s attemptsto share their epiphanies and impose their ownindividual experiences of time, memory, and lifeover the global network that runs on conventionaltime. Counting on extraordinary advances in datastorage capacity and on new, easy-to-use soft -ware, we can finally sit back and remember every -thing.11 From the revelation that women do notneed to have menstrual periods to studies whosegoal is to dramatically reduce the amount of sleepneeded in order to be perfectly functional andeven the debate on human lifespan—which some saysoon could be stretched at least half again as longas current expectations—the focus now is on waysto break the temporal rhythms imposed by societyin order to customize and personalize them.

If design is to help enable us to live to thefullest while taking advantage of all the possibili -ties provided by contemporary technology,designers need to make both people and objectsperfectly elastic. It will entail some imaginativethinking—not simply following a straight line from A to C passing through B. Several design principlescan be used to accomplish this. One recurrenttheme in design today is a stronger involvement of the senses to both enhance and integrate thedelivery of high-tech functions, as in James Augerand Jimmy Loizeau’s and Susana Soares’s scent-based projects or in the synesthesia-inspired workof Eyal Burstein and Michele Gauler—both of whichdemonstrate technology’s ability to deepen oursensorial awareness and spectrum.12 Similarly, anappeal to people’s sense of identity and place canbe found in many projects included here, such as inthe bioengineering of “love moles” and “bone rings,”or in those that address memory in a literal way,such as Michele Gauler’s Digital Remains.

Design schools like the Academy of Art and Designin Eindhoven, The Netherlands (offering, for instance,postgraduate courses in Humanitarian Design andSustainable Style and Interior, Industrial, and

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22Identity Design), or the Royal College of Art, London,focus their courses on senses and sensua lity,identity, memory, and on other staples of humanlife that are as old as humankind—birth, death, love,safety, and curiosity—yet are rendered urgent by the speed with which technology is moving.These principles differ from the so-called human-centered design that functionalist indus trialdesigners of the past fifty years have employedto shift their attention from the object to the“user”;13 they are reminders of the greatresponsibility that comes with design’s new greatpower of giving form and meaning to the degreesof freedom opened by the progress of technology.Such a holistic approach calls for the developmentof well-honed analytical and critical muscles andfor a new, self-assured theory of design. At theRoyal College of Art, for instance, Anthony Dunne,head of the Design Interactions Depart ment,preaches the importance of “critical design,” whichhe defines as “a way of using design as a medium tochallenge narrow assumptions, precon cept ions, andgivens about the role products play in everydaylife.”14 “Design for Debate,” as this new type ofpractice is also called, does not always immediatelylead to “useful” objects but rather to servings of exotic food for thought whose useful ness isrevealed by their capacity to help us ponder howwe really want our things to fit into our lives. NoamToran’s Accessories for Lonely Men and IDEO’sSocial Mobiles comment on, respectively, solitudeand the need for a new etiquette in the age ofwireless communication. And we certainly need suchmeditation more than we need another mobilephone design.

Indeed, even as technology offers us more andmore options, many agree that we in fact requirefewer—not more—objects in our lives. This verysimple belief unites the diverse and yet similarlyidealistic efforts of many designers worldwide whoare trying to inform our lives with the same eco n-omy of energy and materials as found in nature. In addition to balancing our lives with the impera-t ives of new technology, designers today must alsoconsider the impact of their creations on theenvironment. Organic design has had many differentconnotations in history, but in its most contem -porary meaning it encompasses not only theenthusiastic exploration of natural forms andstructures but also interpretations of nature’s


23

Business Architects Inc. for Nikon Corporation. Universcale,Web application describing the size of things in the universe.2005. Illustrator, Photoshop,Flash, and VxEditor software

Charles and Ray Eames’s 1968 film Powers of Ten was particularlyrepresentative of scale as related to the human dimension.New applications relying onupdated technologies attemptthe same feat.

economical frameworks and systems. It emergesfrom the rapidly growing realization that we needto learn to use less matter and energy and to bemore efficient. Several factors make contemporaryorganic design radically different from its pastexpressions. Towering among these is the com puter,whose capacity to master complexity has, perhapssurprisingly, allowed a closeness to the forms andstructures of nature never achieved before.Moreover, the urgent need to manage nature’sresources more thoughtfully and economi cally hasprovoked a sense of responsibility that is felt—orat least worn as a badge—by contemporarythinkers and doers. This trend can be seen in thepervasive use of the term DNA and the suffix -scapeto describe any kind of organically integrat edcontext (e.g., “homescape”) and of biologicallyinspired attributes, such as “cellular,” to describethe organic skeleton of such entities as the orga -nization of new religious sects, lighting systems,and buildings. Even “viral” has taken on a positivemeaning by indicating successful infectious and self-replicating design and communication pheno mena.

When it comes to design, however, a badge is notenough: According to an annual review by Britain’sDesign Council, eighty percent of the environmentalimpact of the products, services, and infrastruct -ures around us is determined at the design stage.15

Design needs to engage directly and developfurther some of the tools it is currently experi -men ting with, such as biomimicry,16 algorithms andother forms of computational design, and nano -tech no logy. Nanotechnology, in particular, offersthe promise of the principle of self-assembly andself-organization that one can find in cells, mole cules,and galaxies; the idea that you would need only togive the components of an object a little push forthe object to come together and reorganize indifferent configurations could have profound impli -cations for the environment, including energy andmaterial savings. “In nanotechnology, new materialsand struct ures can be built atom-by-atom ormolecule-by-molecule,” explains the introductionto the course “Nano and Design” taught by engineerextraordinaire Cecil Balmond at the University ofPenn sylvania, while algorithms are described by archi -tects Chris Lasch and Benjamin Aranda as “a macro, a series of steps, a recipe for making bread.” In theblog that complements his book Soft Machines, RichardJones extols the potential of nanotechnology


24in several areas, among them medicine, and talks about“persuading...cells to differentiate, to take up thespecialized form of a particular organ,” listing severalreasons why nano technology would be beneficial to asustainable energy economy.17

All these tools are about giving objects basic yetprecise instructions and letting them fully develop and connect in networks and systems, and this is whereone of the most powerful new directions for designlies. While traditional design is often about cuttingexisting materials to shape or, in the best cases,taming and adapting them, computational design andnanodesign are about generating objects, as can beseen in embryonic and conceptual examples such asChristopher Woebken’s New Sensual Interfaces, andalso about see ing them adapt to different circum -stances, as in Chuck Hoberman’s Emergent Surfaceresponsive archi tect ure.

As they advocate and obtain roles that are moreand more integral to the evolution of society, designersfind themselves at the center of an extraordinarywave of cross-pollination. Design-centered inter -disciplinary conferences have existed for decades,18

traditionally initiated by designers. Only recently haveother communities started to seek designers’ contri -butions, but this is only the beginning. To adapt andmaster new technologies and directions, design hasbranched out into dozens of specialized applica tions,from communication to interaction and from productdesign to biomimicry. On the other hand, in order to be truly effective, designers should dabble ineconomics, anthropology, bioengineering, religion, andcognitive sciences, to mention just a few of thesubjects they need today in order to be well-roundedagents of change. Because of their role as inter -mediaries between research and production, theyoften act as the main interpreters in interdisciplinaryteams, called upon not only to conceive objects, butalso to devise scenarios and strategies. To cope withthis responsibility, designers should set the found -ations for a strong theory of design—something thatis today still missing—and become astute generalists. At that point, they will be in a unique position tobecome the repositories of contemporary culture’sneed for analysis and synthesis, society’s new prag -matic intellectuals. Like stones thrown in a large pond,we hope that the ideas advanced in this book will makewaves, and that the waves will ripple into an irresis -tible discussion on the future role and responsibilityof designers.

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25 Hussein Chalayan. Mechanical dressfrom the One Hundred and Elevencollection. Prototype. 2006. Digitally printed cotton, metalplates with Swarovski crystals,organza, electric mechanisms, and electronic circuits, dimensionsvariable. Prototype by 2D3D, UK (2006)

As a metaphor for the need tohave fewer, more elastic objectsin our lives, Chalayan's convertibledress could inspire nanodevicesand building facades alike.

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26Notes1.

Mosaic, developed by MarcAndreesen and Eric Bina for theNational Center for Supercompu t -ing Applications and released in1993, was the World Wide Web’sfirst popular browser. Itssuccess was due to its cleargraphic user interface, which madeit approachable and easy to use.

2.For a fuller discussion of copy -right issues, see my note 5 on p. 160 of this volume.

3.Aranda/Lasch and Mandelbrotmade their presentations at thesecond salon, on January 8, 2007.Mandelbrot is the mathematicianwho gave the strongest impetusto fractal geometry by linking itto nature and transformed it intoa cultural phenomenon.

4.Jones, a professor at England’sUniver sity of Sheffield’s Depart -ment of Physics and Astronomy,has written several books, amongthem Soft Machines: Nanotechno -logy and Life (London: OxfordUniver sity Press, 2004). Leroi’sbest-known book is the influentialMutants: On the Form, Varietiesand Errors of the Human Body(New York: Harper Collins, 2003).

5.Peter Galison, “Nanofacture,” inSensorium: Embodied Experience,Technology, and ContemporaryArt, ed. Caroline A. Jones(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,2006), pp. 171–73. Galison is anesteemed historian of science and physics and a professor at Harvard University.

6.Dan E. Atkins, John Seely Brown,and Allen L. Hammond, “A Review ofthe OEal Resources (OER) Movement:Achievements, Challenges, and NewOpportunities,” Report to TheWilliam and Flora Hewlett Found -ation, February 2007. OER standsfor Open Educational Resources.Brown, chief scientist at Xeroxuntil 2002 and director of thelegendary Xerox Palo Alto ResearchCenter (Xerox PARC) until 2000, is among the foremost experts ontechnology and innovation.

7.The Slow Food movement waslaunched in Italy in 1986 torestore the pleasure of “real”food. It was so successful that it contributed to the “slow” con cept now spreading to alldimensions of life, from cities to schools and even to money.

8.Graphic designer and computerscientist John Maeda, who is alsoassociate director of research atthe MIT Media Lab, has trans lated

his commitment to the ease ofcommunication between peopleand objects into a full-fledgedplatform based on simplicity thatinvolves the Media Lab as well ascorporations like the Dutchelectronics giant Philips. In thissame vein, James Surowiecki’s May 28, 2007, article in the New Yorker, titled “FeaturePresentation,” discusses thedecline in popular ity of objectsencumbered by too manyfeatures, a phenomenon called“feature creep.”

9.According to its Web site, “TheLong Now Foundation was esta -blish ed in 01996* to...become theseed of a very long-term culturalinstitution. The Long Now Founda -tion hopes to provide counter -point to today’s ‘faster/cheaper’mind-set and promote ‘slower/better’ thinking. We hope tocreatively foster responsibility in the framework of the next10,000 years.” (“*The Long NowFoundation uses five-digit dates;the extra zero is to solve thedeca-millennium bug which will comeinto effect in about 8,000 years.”)

10.When going to Dubai, make sure youbring not only your bathing suitbut also your favorite ski goggles,because chances are you will visitthe Snow Dome for a quick downhillrace on the perfect powderyslope, in order to escape the110-degree temperature outside;and when ordering at a McDonald’sdrive-thru, don’t be fooled intothinking that your interlocutor isin the booth—she might be inMumbai. The outsourcing of callcenters and customer servicecenters has greatly contributedto the establishment of our new time-space proportion.

11.In the May 28, 2007, issue of theNew Yorker, an article by AlecWilkinson titled “Remember This? A Project to Record EverythingWe Do in Life” reported that thegreat computer scientist GordonBell had in 1998 set out todigitize and archive his whole life,from childhood pictures andhealth records to coffee mugs.The project is still in process.

12.Amazing things are happening inthe realm of the senses.Scientists and technologists arefocusing on hearing, for instance,and on its untapped potential.Several researchers are experi -menting on sonocytology, a way to diagnose cancer by listening to cells—or better, by readingsonograms. Professor James K. Gim zewski and Andrew E. Pelling atthe UCLA Department of Chemistry

Scott Wilson. iBelieve lanyard foriPod Shuffle. 2005. ABS plastic, 3/8 x 4 3/4 x 3" (0.8 x 12 x 7.5 cm).Manufactured by National Electronic,China (2005)

It is an irresistible send-up of the public's fanatical adoration of Apple products and at the same time a pensive reminder ofthe growing importance of the spiritual sphere in a world rife with techno logy and ideology. D

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27 Moloudi Hadji. École cantonaled’art de Lausanne (écal). Pierce’nBrush. Prototype. 2003. Stainlesssteel and nylon, 1 1/4 x 1/4" (3.1 x 0.6 cm) diam.

Multifunctional objects for multi-tasking citizens of the world. Why waste the opportunity for a flexible-use tongue stud?

first made the discovery thatyeast cells oscillate at the nano -scale in 2002. Amplifying thisoscillation results in a sound thatlies within the human audible range.As far as olfaction is con cerned,one study has explored how certaindogs can sniff cancer in a person’sbreath (Michael McCulloch, TadeuszJezierski, Michael Broffman, AlanHubbard, Kirk Turner, and TeresaJanecki, “Diagnostic Accuracy ofCanine Scent Detection in Early-and Late-Stage Lung and BreastCancers,” Integrative CancerTherapies 3 (March 2006): pp. 30-39).

13.The champion of this attitude isrenowned design critic Don Norman,whose work is directly aimed atproduct designers.

14.Anthony Dunne, interview in Domus889 (February 2006): p. 55.Moreover, the Web page intro -ducing the college’s Design Inter -actions Depart ment reads:“Designers often refer to peopleas ‘users,’ or sometimes as ‘con -su mers.’ In Design Inter actions,we prefer to think of both usersand designers as, first and fore -most, people. That is, we seeourselves as complex indivi dualsmoving through an equally complex,technologically mediated, consumerlandscape. Interaction may be ourmedium in this depart ment, butpeople are our primary subject,and people cannot be neatlydefined and labeled. We are contra -dictory, volatile, and always sur -prising. To remember this is toengage fully with the complexitiesand challenges of both people andthe field of interaction design.”

15.Design Council, Annual Review 2002,London: 2002, p. 19.

16.As the Biomimicry.net Web sitereads, “Biomimicry (from bios,meaning life, and mimesis, meaningto imitate) is a design disciplinethat studies nature’s best ideasand then imitates these designsand processes to solve humanproblems.” The Biomimicry Institu teand its president, Janine M. Benyus,author of the 1997 book Biomimicry(New York: William Morrow), whichpopularized this field of study, is a resource for designers andcompanies interes ted in learn ingto observe nature and apply thesame type of eco no mical wisdomto issues ranging from mundane toexistential, such as how to reduceour erosion of the world’s resources.

17.Engineer Cecil Balmond (of Arup),assisted by Jenny Sabin, teachesin the University of Pennsyl vania’sSchool of Design, in the Depart ment

of Architecture. The quotationwas taken from a description ofthe course for the spring 2007semester. It continues, “The nanoprefix means one-billionth, so a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Just as anti biotics, thesilicon transistor and plastics...nanotechnology is expect ed tohave profound influences in thetwenty-first century, rangingfrom nanoscopic machines thatcould for instance be inject ed inthe body to fix problems and thecreation of artificial organs andprosthetics, all the way to self-assembling electronic com ponentsthat behave like organic struct -ures and better materials thatperform in novel ways.” Chris Laschand Benjamin Aranda, in a conver -sation with the author on March14, 2007, talked about the role of algorithms in architecture, also well explained in their incisivevolume Tooling (New York:Princeton Architectural Press,2005). Richard A. L. Jones’s blog is a precious resource for allthose who want more informationon the potential practical appli cations of nanotechnology in our future (see also note 4). See www.softmachines.org.

18.A few of my personal favorites:the historical International DesignConference in Aspen, now defunct,the ongoing TED (Technology,Enter tainment, Design, founded byRichard Saul Wurman and now run by Chris Anderson), and Doors ofPerception (founded and still runby John Thackara).

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Design and the Elastic Mind Paola Antonelli Design and the ... · Design and the Elastic Mind 14 Paola Antonelli History is punctuated by uproariously wrong predictions made by savvy