Talking hats and clocks on display

Talk to Me – it is neither a message crying for conciliation, nor a sequel to Pedro Almodovar’s heartbreaking drama.

­It is in fact an apt title for an unconventional exhibition opened at Moscow’s Museum of Modern Art – one that explores quirky relations between people and things.

The display features a wide spectrum of objects from all over the world ranging from interfaces and products to diagrams, visualizations, state-of-the-art devices and vehicles of the furniture, created by cutting-edge designers, students and scientists in the past few years.

Examples span from funny gadgets like Artificial Biological Clock and Muttering Hat to a few iconic products of the late 1960s, as well as an array of computer and machine interfaces, websites, video games and furniture.


Artificial Biological Clock by Revital Cohen (Photo by Tuur Van Balen)

Contemporary design has turned into communication design. It has changed its somewhat old-fashioned, traditional concept of simply “serving” people’s needs, becoming a creative symbiosis of function and emotion.

It is no secret that all objects possess a certain code – information that goes beyond their official “method of application” and deceptive appearance. So how do we communicate with one another in an attempt to find a common language?

Some objects, like cell phones or computers, are aimed at giving us access to complex systems and networks, serving – and behaving – as our personal guides, interpreters, messengers.

In this or that manner or mode, openly or covertly, all things talk to us, fulfilling our limitless tasks while designers are helping us lead the dialogue more smoothly, to establish an emotional, sensual, or intellectual connection between people and objects.

­Valeria Paikova, RT

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