(2004-09-16) Cooper Hewitt Visit

Went up to Cooper Hewitt (Design museum) last weekend. (No, Victor Lombardi, not Cooper Union.)

• Future Shack was an interesting display of a container crate turned into a refugee temporary living space. (Shades of Cory Doctorow) I thought plywood panelling the entire interior and having lots of recessed lights, etc. created lots of material cost, labor cost, and weight, though. Shades of Pre-Fab.

• Faster Cheaper Newer More (curated by Kurt Andersen) was pretty interesting, though only a single small room.

  • I liked the little "PeepShow" box, definitely want to build something like that instead of a cheesy old diorama when the kid his those darn school projects (Stimulating Learning Projects). You look through a small hole at one end, there are multiple interior walls with increasingly-large hole to give more of a dimensional effect, and the top is open to let light in.

  • Tele Graph spread: perfected in 1844; in 1848 NYC, Washington DC, and Boston Ma were all connected together; 1858 Trans Atlantic cable done.

• Design Aint Art took up the entire 2nd floor. Is it ugly furniture or ugly art? You be the judge.

  • One piece was a bunch of chairs that you were invited to duct tape over, which some people were obsessively "interacting" with: "look honey i'm an artist". But the guard kept me from taking a picture. Ah the irony...