Technology Talks Back: On Communication, Contemporary Art, and the New Museum Exhibition

 
Talk to Me, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, is a paradigmatic collection of new media artistic experiments and an open experimental space in itself. The theme of the event, now one of the foundations of 21^st century design concepts, is the communication between people and objects. “Whether openly and actively or in subtle, subliminal ways, things talk to us,” says Paola Antonelli, the senior curator of the exhibition, on the welcome page of the website. “They do not all speak up: some use text, diagrams, visual interfaces, or even scent and temperature: others just keep us company in eloquent silence.” Talk to Me investigates this subtle but ubiquitous communicative relation, and in the process of interrogating it, makes an influential statement on the expanding taxonomies of postmodern communication.
 
The exhibition is organized around five subcategories (objects, bodies, life, city, world, and double entendre), all speaking to the dialogue – textual, paratextual or, most often, atextual – between us and the objects and technologies that increasingly structure our quotidian existence. In this sense, the exhibition – in light of both its content and its installation in a modern art museum – can be read as evidence of the broadening, convergent spectrum of contemporary art, design, and engineering categories. These concepts, Talk to Me seems to be suggesting, are evolving (and converging), just like the categories of communication are broadening (and converging).
 
Ms. Antonelli launched a fascinating discussion this past June when she suggested, at the Aspen Ideas Festival, that we “start treating museums as the R&D departments of society” (Aspen Institute). Talk to Me, as a paragon of this impulse, brings up important questions about the image and function of the museum exhibition in the 21^st century and beyond. And the collective identity of the artists represented in this exhibition is a telling sign of this fresh direction. Going through all the exhibits, the visitor is struck by the very young age of the designers (most of them born after 1980), and by the multitude of countries and cultures represented. This is truly a global generation of young artists and designers, and seeing their creations build such a coherent, unified statement on the future of communication is indeed exhilarating.
 
The technologies and artifacts on view have varying degrees of social utility, but they all function, on a sociocultural level, as personal statements on technology and culture, and the increasingly complicated relationship between the two. A crucial argument that the exhibition seems to be making is that we have reached a point where it is imperative to recognize this association and its vital implications in terms of social progress, innovation and cultural introspection. As scholar and media designer Anne Balsamo writes, “continuing to bifurcate the technological from the cultural not only makes probable consequences unthinkable, but also severely limits the imaginative space of innovation in the first place” (4). From this perspective, Talk to Me is an argument against this artificial bifurcation, and a call to recognize the cultural impact of technological developments, as contemporary innovation continues to accelerate. Beyond a showcase of design ingenuity, each exhibit is, at its core, a statement on this cultural impact, and a tentative verdict on the multifaceted relationship between technology and culture – as either beneficial, dangerous or, oftentimes, a mixture of the two.
 
The exhibits that speak to enhancement, and to the enabling potential of new interactive technologies, are some of the most inspiring pieces in the collection. Their statement is a hopeful one, emphasizing the empowering potential of design and technology. In one of the most emotionally powerful exhibits, we are presented with the EyeWriter, a technology which enabled a graffiti artist to continue drawing from his hospital bed, after being completely paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): the EyeWriter captures his eye movements and projects his graffiti designs in real time from his hospital bed to downtown LA – all with just a laptop computer and $50 worth of equipment. Several innovations are targeted at facilitating the communication of visually impaired users: the be-B Braille Education Ball and the Rubik’s Cube for the Blind are two fantastic devices exemplifying the promising potential of technology in enabling the human body to overcome its limitations.
 
In addition to empowerment, another optimistic idea the exhibition showcases is the concept of enhancement via technology, and thus a key theme that runs through the exhibition is that of the constantly reimagined relationship between the familiar and the new. Sebastian Bettencourt’s project, for instance, aptly titled Beyond the Fold, is a prototype for a newspaper of the future but, unlike many other similar technologies and interfaces aiming for this goal, Bettencourt’s creation foregoes the inclusion of buttons, icons and similar digital interface elements, and opts instead to focus on the newspaper’s “spatial properties, presence, and relationship to a reader’s motions.” Quintessentially, usage relies on familiar motions associated with the act of browsing through a newspaper: thus, the device is activated by unfolding it, content is navigated by physically turning the page, and the visual information is refreshed by shaking the device. According to the designer, the aim of this device is to take advantage of modern technological affordances, while honoring the traditional ritual of reading the newspaper. And this – this transcendental mixture of technology and ritual – is precisely what is highlighted in Soner Ozenc’s El Sajjadah, a Muslim prayer rug that makes use of electroluminescent printing technologies to point the person in the direction of Mecca, increasing its brightness as it is rotated in the correct direction.
 
Oftentimes, this fusion of the familiar and the new means a blend of the real and the virtual, and many of the exhibits dealing with the idea of technological enhancement are quintessential experiments with virtuality. Keiichi Matsuda’s ambitious Augmented City 3D is a hybrid depiction of urban space as an “immersive human-computer interface,” where the quotidian experience of living and functioning in an urban milieu is enhanced by a layer of augmented reality – storing, organizing and displaying digital information along a sophisticated yet familiar three-dimensional space. In the same vein, a whimsical exhibit called Chromaroma, by the design company Mudlark, similarly builds on an existing – and oh-so-familiar – infrastructure and augments it, via technology, to create an exciting and completely new social and cultural platform. Chromaroma is a social game aiming to retrieve the wonder of play and the pleasure of the journey, turning a banal subway trip on the London underground into a real-time social game. Commuters play the game using their Oyster cards – a form of electronic subway tickets – and are placed in teams where they win points for each subway journey and can choose to complete a series of missions. According to the game description,
 

some missions rely on an evolving story line (such as a diamond heist or a ghost hunt), and others have players altering their daily routines (getting off a stop earlier or going all the way to the end of the line) in order to gain a new perspective on the city. The players’ physical movements are recorded by their Oyster cards and can be charted on three-dimensional interactive maps and published on Twitter or Facebook, making everyday journeys into social experiences.

In addition, it is surprisingly low-tech within the spectrum of the present exhibition and beyond: the game does not rely on smartphone technology and is accessible to any subway user with a low-cost Oyster card.

 
Designs like Matsuda’s and Mudlark’s are underpinned by a vision of the virtual augmenting the real, without displacing it. At the same time, however, Talk to Me features exhibits that suggest the perilous consequences of this convergence, and of the ubiquity of communication technologies in our personal and social lives. The displacement of reality by virtual perception seems to be the warning evoked by Marc Owen’s Avatar Machine, which toys with the notion of self-presence, and our (post)modern conception of our own bodies. Owen’s innovation is “a wearable apparatus (including a camera on the back) that simulates the third-person gaming experience in real space, down to the spiky helmet, padded torso, and armored gloves.” The user controls his or her own avatar, but simultaneously sees it in the traditional videogame mode, “as if hovering a few feet behind.” During the testing of his Avatar Machine in public spaces, Owens noticed that the modified perspective of their own bodies led users to involuntarily pick up gaming movements and behaviors, such as taking larger steps and swinging their arms in motion – a fascinating finding that evokes the increasingly blurred line between real and virtual perceptions.
 
An important number of exhibits represent statements on the dangerous sociocultural implications of technologies pushed to the extreme, which most often have to do, in the context of the exhibition, with the erosion of interpersonal communication and authentic social relations. Therefore, in contrast to the exhibits rejoicing in the idea of technological enhancement, these artistic pieces take the form of an evocative, poignant dystopia, one, where the line between comfort and conflict is unnervingly – and fabulously – thin. In Reyer Zwiggelaar and Bashar Rajoub’s project Happylife, a special camera equipped with biometric sensors detects fluctuations in a person’s mood by taking thermal images of his or her face. In the project description, its designers envision it being used to prevent future criminal activity (yes, Minority Report does come to mind) and even “keeping the peace at home.” The technology is designed to differentiate between family members using facial recognition software and “a dial, one for each family member, registers current and predicted emotional states, based on data accumulated over the years by the machine.” The designers, together with writer and poet Richard M. Turley, have even created vignettes of its familial use in the household. These imaginary scenarios are simultaneously touching and eerily disturbing: “It was that time of the year. All of the Happylife prediction dials had spun anti-clockwise, like barometers reacting to an incoming storm. We lost David 4 years ago and the system was anticipating our coming sadness. We found this strangely comforting.” But would it really be comforting? The artist-scientists are currently looking for research subjects, so perhaps soon enough we shall know.
 
From German designer Jonas Loh comes the equally grave Amæ Apparatus, which he calls “an early-warning system for stressed-out people, soliciting sympathy and allowing assistance to be provided in a timely manner.” The concept was born out of his concern regarding the high suicide rates in professional environments, caused by the suppression of feelings in the workplace. Thus, the Apparatus, worn like a backpack, makes the wearer’s feelings explicit to those around him by interpreting stress levels through a skin sensor; then, “color-coded smoke erupts from a spout in a canister to alert coworkers to various emotional states.”
 
And for those busy women out there, those digitally native daughters of the new millennium, young artist Revital Cohen brings us the Artificial Biological Clock, a pseudoindustrial manifesto on the female detachment from natural body rhythms, womanhood, and childbearing. As the project description has it,

A woman no longer in touch with her body’s rhythms could rely on the Artificial Biological Clock to remind her of her fertility’s ‘temporary and fragile nature.’ The clock is fed information via an online service from her doctor, therapist, and bank manager. When these complex factors align perfectly, the clock lets her know that she is ready to have a child.

Doctor, therapist, and bank manager? One cannot help but smile. The bra-burning days are gone, sisters. We have reached an unexpected apex.

 
On a macro level, beyond the cultural commentaries that the individual exhibits are making, Talk to Me is a statement on the changing role of the museum in the 21^st century, and the shifting practices of curating, viewing and appreciating artwork that accompany this transformation. The exhibition was put together by Paola Antonelli by crowdsourcing curation on the MOMA website in the months prior to its opening, where the larger public was able to suggest artworks to be included, as well as comment on others’ suggestions. The practice of viewing and experiencing the exhibits was similarly collective in nature. A sign at the entrance of the pavilion advised visitors that “digital technology can enhance your experience of the exhibition,” and viewers were encouraged to engage with the artworks via the Internet and social media. Each piece was accompanied by a QR code, which provided multimedia context to the work, and by a Twitter hashtag allowing visitors to share their thoughts on the artifacts.
 
In a recent conference paper, Bautista and Balsamo introduce the concept of the “distributed museum” to account for the changes in the traditional cultural role and scope of the museum in the digital age; according to this argument, the traditional museum, enhanced by social media-based participatory activities and digital communication technologies, is gradually becoming a distributed learning space transcending its physical location. MOMA’s Talk to Me is a rich exponent of this transformation, allowing for a distributed engagement with the exhibition by means of social media (Twitter) and web-based content (official website, QR links). In view of these shifting relations between visitor and exhibit, however, an important question to ponder is whether this new mode of engagement truly enhances the experience of viewing and perceiving artwork. And while the digital integration of hashtags or QR codes in this experience provides context and allows for a more social mode of engagement, does it sacrifice a more authentic sensory-based experience? Or does it do away with the distance between the art and the viewer, personalizing the experience and making it customized, social, and shared – just as we expect new technologies to do?
 
While the answers to these inquiries will vary based on the type of exhibition in question, in the case of Talk to Me, the inclusion of new media tools and features is, arguably, an enhancement of the works presented, especially given the technocentric nature of the exhibition. The availability of videos and websites that provide context on the exhibits (via the QR codes that accompany them) does indeed allow for better comprehension and appreciation of the art works in this case, precisely because so many of them are digital applications that cannot be fully experienced in a gallery setting. In this way, the links and videos provide evidence of their practical use, and help contextualize the social and cultural function of each exhibit, as envisioned by its creators. In addition, the ability to take part in a collective commentary on the works presented, via Twitter, is in tune with the overall theme of the exhibition – technology and communication – and provides a welcome forum for debate and criticism.
 
There are, nevertheless, lingering challenges embedded in these new parameters of participation, and it is vital that they are not glossed over amidst the enthusiasm of embracing these novel digital tools. Specifically, how integral are these contextual digital experiences to the comprehension and appreciation of the exhibits themselves? And, very importantly, who is excluded as a result of this new mode of engagement? Especially when these digital experiences are a crucial part of the engagement with the artwork, there is an inherent risk – as well as an ethical challenge – in excluding a whole section of the public that may not have the material tools or the sociocultural capital to participate in this manner; this situation, furthermore, is in direct conflict with the desire for widened participation that represents the original impulse behind this digital integration.