Designs That Speak to Us

Paola Antonelli in conversation with Chris Campbell

It takes an open mind to put a working subway card vending machine in an art museum exhibition. It’s just the sort of genre-expanding choice that has made Paola Antonelli, in her role as a senior curator for the New York Museum of Modern Art’s Department of Architecture and Design, one of today’s most influential culture mavens. Her upcoming exhibition, Talk to Me, opening at MoMA July 24 will explore many ways that objects, ranging from the aforementioned vending machine to a device that simulates menstruation, communicate with people.

Paola Antonelli on Talk to Me
We are going to have a working MetroCard vending machine in the exhibition. Why? The MetroCard vending machine, both the machine itself and the interface, are quite amazingly good.

Paola Antonelli on crowdsourcing
We would try to get to the things we hadn’t looked at yet, during the next all-nighter. Then we would try to move things from the queue into different categories. The ones that didn’t pass muster, we just made disappear; we didn’t say “No,” you know, that would just be too mean.

Paola Antonelli on technology and design
That’s what I’m talking about: designers make us comfortable with innovation and with progress. They try to have a benign effect on the technology that so many people are scared of.

Paola Antonelli on brand
The moment of communication of brand can happen in a totally uncontrolled manner, anywhere, and sometimes it would be better if it didn’t happen.