iArt

Talk to Me at the Museum of Modern Art

           It is my opinion that technology becomes both more ridiculous and more amazing through the years of its development.

           Ridiculous because it has achieved heights that long ago would have seemed both impossible and useless—like the Mumbling Hat, on display at the Museum of Modern Art’s Talk To Me. The Mumbling Hat, through its blue felt ear protectors, literally scans the fluctuations of your brain waves and transmits aurally to your ear exactly what you’re thinking.  Even if you already know.

           Amazing because it is astounding to the extent to which designers and engineers are willing to go to make our lives both easier and more interesting—like EyeWriter, a software system allowing the fully paralyzed to—you guessed it—write or even create graffiti with only their eyes and the program’s fully automated laser pointer.

           Technology is what separates our own breed of animal from the rest, in giving us tools to combat the problems in our lives.  Nowhere is this process both so evident (or not) than in the cheerfully decorated interiors of Talk to Me.  Ranging from the mundane (a poster showing what strokes should be performed in the act of brushing one’s teeth) to the insane (a negatively stimulating metal chastity belt of sorts that mimics both the pain and bleeding of the menstrual period for any male or menopausal who wishes to try it out), technology is what brings us together from all corners of the world as a people.  In a way, we’re all like children, crowding together on common ground to exclaim, “Look what I got!” accompanied by friends’ sighs of jealousy.This is why Talk to Me makes so much sense.  Not everyone can relate to art (though even the green-tinted Warhol’s Flowers in MoMA’s entryway is greatly beautiful), but in this rapidly changing world, everyone of every age who can relate personally to technology and carries a ready smartphone in his or her hand would be remiss in skipping this exhibit.

           One of the most amazing things about Talk to Me is that it's almost a living breathing creature in its technological abundance, responding visibly to the visitor pleasantly holding up an iPhone or the less favorable (at least to this reporter) Android.  For one, take an amused look at the exhibit’s entry guardian—a red, cubical, lovable scamp by the brilliantly clever name of Talking Carl.  Carl sports a touch screen next to his enormous projection that allows control over his annoyance or satisfaction levels, but it doesn’t always function well.  Anyway, the most pleasing experience is to download Carl’s app onto your iPhone or iPad and poke him repeatedly in the eye on your personal handheld. 

           Then view with regret the QR codes under each object, which can be scanned from the lowliest iPhone 3GS to reveal a cornucopia of additional, easily accessible information about this new, revolutionary invention.  For the smartphone-less, the exhibit slowly devolves into one mass of moving metal after another until one is desperate for interactivity.  (To be fair, there is much of this for which no phone at all is necessary in the exhibit.)

           Admittedly, as a member of Generation Y, I have long ceased to be impressed by any object of technology that does not offer me godlike powers, so I confess to being unfair.  For those of you not so cold, just the sight of such amazing work from geniuses all over the world will be sure to induce gasps—or perhaps laughter.  I’d like to finish with this observation.  Among all the incredible advances of this century, in the middle of the exhibit lies an ordinary, functioning, peaceful MetroCard Vending Machine.  And if that doesn’t unite the last two or three generations into one cooperative group of techies, I don’t know what will.