by Paola Antonelli (Speech at the Doors of Perception 3 Conference)

Table of Contents:
Summary
Introduction
Continuity
Peaks
Objects and Materials

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Summary
Materials play a pivotal, facilitating role in our efforts at dematerialisation: slowing down depletion of natural resources and speeding up the flow of information. 'Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design' is the title of a show curated by Paola Antonelli at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The show focuses on materials - raw, semi-raw and in finished products - as a way of revealing the beauty of contemporary design. For Antonelli, the beauty of these designs derives from the economy and logic with which they were created Ñ a process that represents a highly refined bridge between ideas and their material manifestations. It is around this continuity between the mental and material that the show is structured. This principle causes it to cut straight across boundaries of aesthetics and branches of industry, resulting in a mind-boggling array of designs that reflect what Antonelli calls todayÕs peak of innovation and experimentation in materials, forms and behaviours. Antonelli shows 26 slides of the show, which included special sections for objects to be touched, and explains some of what went into designing, making and displaying the show's 230 objects.

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Introduction
I will speak about the show 'Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design' at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It was devoted to revealing the beauty of contemporary industrial design. I was curator of the show, and I decided that materials themselves offered the best way of showing the beauty of contemporary design. This beauty is not simply to be found in the finished object. It is in the process -- the amazing economy and the kinds of logic that go into the design of an object nowadays.

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Continuity
This show was the first major design show in about eight years and stirred up its share of discussion. I found one particular argument between two rival journalists intriguing and very amusing. I'll call them A and B here, for conciseness' sake. A's position was: 'Now that everybody is going crazy about digital design, the digital invention of the whole world and the immaterialization of what we own, why is MOMA doing a show about materials?' B immediately replied: 'Well, the first thing that the curator does, as soon as the show is up, is create a website.' As much as I thought about it, I could not see the point of this exchange.

I could not see the opposition between 'digital' and 'material' any more than I could ever see the opposition between mental and material. The whole show was a celebration of the continuity between mental and material -- a celebration of the fact that there can be no mental exercise (except in a very few cases, perhaps) without a material outlet of some sort. Have you realised how we grasp metaphors to help us conceptualise future scenarios? Objects contain the memory of our grandmother, mother and ourselves. Chick-peas help us count time. Virtually anything has to have a material representation. This continuity has certainly not disappeared.

The show was intended not only for designers, but as wide a public as possible. I tried to make materials really available to the public and to have as many touchable objects as possible. At the show's entrance, visitors can see one of the first objects in the show, a piece of experimental glass made by Schott in Germany. It was designed to be an insulating glass for double-glazed windows. There are little canules of glass between the two sheets and it creates a beautiful visual deformation of reality.

The show contained about 230 objects, chosen to show the continuity of mental and material. The whole show was rather like a dark, blue cave with pools of light. Within these 'clouds' of light in which the materials were floating, there were also some separate sections, with grey ledges containing all the objects and materials that could be touched.

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Peaks
In one of his lectures, a professor who now teaches at the University of Vienna explained the relationship between innovation and recession. One of the things he illustrated was that peaks in recession correspond to peaks in innovation. It seem almost as though necessity helps to stimulate creativity. I think we are now reaching a peak of innovation similar to the one that followed World War II. While we haven't been at war in the same sense in recent years, with the reduction of armaments, we seem to be searching among available techniques in the same way we did following World War II. For example, the US government is making a serious attempt to create an image of itself as 'divulging'. There are at least five or six technology transfer centres under the auspices of the US government and military that exist only to give designers, scientists and others information about new materials and techniques that could be put to civilian use. This is why we are now witnessing extraordinary experimentation that starts with materials and moves on to involve forms, structures and behaviour. In the show, I hung an aeroplane in the garden hall of MOMA near the entrance behind the escalators. This aeroplane is just one example among many now built with fibres and composites. I found that this one achieved the best formal expression of the use of fibres and composites.

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Objects and Materials
Each object was intended to show mental and material continuity and a logical beauty that stemmed from the appropriate use of the material. The exhibition was a mixture of many finally-produced objects and a few prototypes.

These included working prototypes, such as examples of a series of light switches that were designed by IDO in San Francisco. Also included were possible applications of a new technique that uses a sandwich of two sheets of glass and a sheet of beautifully coloured polymethylmetacrylate (plastics). There was a nutcracker that uses plastics instead of the traditional metal -- an interesting transposition. The exhibition showed either innovative materials in their applications or the innovative use of already-existing materials.

People were really touching the materials enthusiastically. I think much of the success of the show was due to the fun people had. Entertainment -- fun -- pleasure is a very powerful way to get your message across. Another example is the development of the use of recycled materials, something still in its beginnings. In a sense, designers have not achieved security in the use of recycled materials. Among the objects from recycled materials were a wastepaper basket that is a design from the fifties and a very interesting lamp from Australia that uses recycled tail lights crushed into confetti-like pieces and then pressed together using one of the oldest techniques of the use of plastics.

The show had an armchair by Gaetano Pesce, made with shredded pieces of fabric imbued with resin. He also designed the cover of the catalogue, which was produced in a special edition that had a resin cover over the cardboard cover. We also had a plastic fin made with a plastic mould. This represents an enormous advancement in present-day production and manufacturing techniques, one that enables much experimentation. Until a few years ago, it took a great investment to produce an object made out of plastics, because moulds were usually steel or aluminium. With composite moulds and resins, a much higher flexibility can be obtained.

The show also included semi-raw materials. The education department of MOMA organised a treasure hunt for children. Children were given a bag filled with raw or semi-raw materials and then had to find the objects that were made with those materials. They could touch carbon fibre as it is before it is given a shape.

The show included many kinds of objects representing various kinds of beauty or logic. An iron chair that Herman Miller manufactured last year, despite its quite redundant aesthetics, represents an incredible, new use of elastic fibres for the seat and the back. A very light, carbon fibre chair by Alberto Meda expresses and suggests the new ways that people are furnishing their homes. Strangely, these experimental materials sometimes go too fast for our capacity to adapt, a bit like computers that are too fast for our minds. Chairs like this have not been able to break through in the domestic environment -- because they are different from what we are used to; they are too light and give us a sense of insecurity and almost of danger. Another example of simplicity in experimentation: a chair by Alberto Meda made with aluminium and a special elastic fibre.

One set of book stops is just a parentheses: a bar of elastic metal with two rubber cylinders at the extremities. This is a very simple and very clear use of materials.

One striking example of the use of recycled aluminium, but also of a continuity of tradition in a contemporary realm, was designed by Hisanari Masuda, who works in the prefecture in Japan that produces all the cast-iron teapots. This prefecture has been specialised in the use of metals for centuries. Here, a designer has simply used a contemporary material to produce forms that clearly stem from centuries of tradition. Soft wood was an example of a new technique that mutates the character of a material that has been serene and permanent for centuries. We are used to wood being flexible and very good for traction and flexion, but certainly not soft. This new technique enables us to apply wood veneer directly to polyurethane foam with just a very thin layer of fabric in between. A very Spartan, seemingly monastic chair can surprise when it turns out to be soft. This is yet another example of the use of a traditional material in a contemporary way.

I was amazed by the statement of purpose underlying the design of a condom keeper. The designers were two, a boy and a girl. The boy said: I am always so embarrassed to go look in the drawer. I want to have a beautiful table-top object with my condoms there on my bed table; therefore, the material chosen was ceramics.Another designer saw some ceramic material in a show. It is actually intended for heavier technical applications, but the designer decided to make objects with it. Ceramic pistons and engine parts will be widely used in engines in the future, when scientists succeed in eliminating the `chippable' quality of ceramics.

It is very difficult for a curator to make a broad public aware of the importance of design. Nobody knows where exactly to place design in their culture cabinet. I think this exhibition was particularly successful in showing how design can be placed. Design is different from art, but at the same time is a wonderful synthesis that shows the continuity between mental and material. People were touching the objects in the rubber and foam section with wild enthusiasm. They would even sit on the objects. And children were having a great time. The exhibition was about the use of materials and explained not so much a new aesthetics or style, but simply a new attitude among designers -- an attitude based on economy and on the beauty of economy. The beauty of an economical design is not synonymous with Spartan. It is expressed by a perceptible, evident balance between the idea and the final object.

One of the most successful things in the show is a series of silica-derived materials called aerogels. They are waiting for somebody to give them a goal and a shape. Their immateriality is amazing. When you hold an aerogel in your hands, it is like holding nothing, a cloud, some smoke. It is amazing that such a poetic and beautiful material can emerge from research with a completely different orientation. I will tell you a story about this. Someone from the PR section of the laboratory that produced the material came to the opening of the show and became quite emotional. She said: Oh, it is so great to see these objects in a peaceful setting. I asked what she meant. It turned out that it was the Lawrence Livermore lab, that was involved in the production of nuclear weapons. They are now moving away from that.

In conclusion, I want to tell about a lamp that represents the whole show and is the best symbol of what contemporary design is about, in my view. I want to tell a story about it (I'm sure it generates many stories.) The designer, Takeshi Ishiguro, came to install this lamp about three days before the opening of the show. I had given this lamp a special corner, so he went to this corner in the stark, blue, messy room filled with people working, put down the pedestal first and then sat down in front of the lamp. It took him about two days to construct it, because he would take an hour in between actions. I was very puzzled and kidded him: Hey, Takeshi, what's going on? Are you waiting for it to talk to you? He would just smile. At the end of the second day, he said: I am finished. I am leaving. I said: Come on, tomorrow is the opening, There is going to be a party, celebrations, fun. And he said: I have to go to Tokyo. And off he went. As soon as he left, I sat in front of the lamp to watch it in action. The lamp is made of carbon fibre rods with counterweights. At the upper left side, you see a bottom reflector that is a half egg of porcelain. The bulb is in there. And on top of that are two more rods and a bird's feather. The bird's feather dances because of the heat of the bulb and also because on the onlookers' breathing. It is very sensitive. I sat in front of it and watched it go for a while. Suddenly, the guard came to me and said: It's time to close. I had been sitting there for an hour and a half -- without noticing. Even though I think Takeshi is a particularly unique talent, I can see many people that are working like him, making objects that have a purpose that goes beyond mere use. I see designers with clear ideas that take into account economy, ecology, beauty, use. These ideas are very complete. And the objects that come from these ideas are very close to the initial ideas. This is something that new materials and the advancement of technology have made possible, but also it is made possible by the revolution in culture at large.

This is why I think that there is no doom ahead of us, at least, not one made by designers. There is only the beginning of a new culture that is based on economy and logical beauty. I think that this will make our world more beautiful, in terms of use and in general. Thank you.