0:00:00.392,0:00:02.586
I'm almost like a crazy evangelical.

0:00:02.586,0:00:05.331
I've always known that the age of design is upon us,

0:00:05.331,0:00:07.412
almost like a rapture.

0:00:07.412,0:00:08.947
If the day is sunny, I think,

0:00:08.947,0:00:11.472
"Oh, the gods have had a good design day."

0:00:11.472,0:00:15.788
Or, I go to a show and I see a beautiful piece by an artist,

0:00:15.788,0:00:17.090
particularly beautiful, I say

0:00:17.090,0:00:20.090
he's so good because he clearly looked to design

0:00:20.090,0:00:21.813
to understand what he needed to do.

0:00:21.813,0:00:24.514
So I really do believe that design

0:00:24.514,0:00:27.276
is the highest form of creative expression.

0:00:27.276,0:00:30.986
That's why I'm talking to you today about the age of design,

0:00:30.986,0:00:33.181
and the age of design is the age in which design

0:00:33.181,0:00:37.020
is still cute furniture, is still posters,

0:00:37.020,0:00:39.878
is still fast cars, what you see at MoMA today.

0:00:39.878,0:00:43.703
But in truth, what I really would like to explain

0:00:43.703,0:00:46.005
to the public and to the audiences of MoMA is that

0:00:46.005,0:00:48.668
the most interesting chairs are the ones

0:00:48.668,0:00:51.545
that are actually made by a robot,

0:00:51.545,0:00:54.326
like this beautiful chair by Dirk Vander Kooij,

0:00:54.326,0:00:58.058
where a robot deposits a toothpaste-like slur

0:00:58.058,0:01:00.914
of recycled refrigerator parts,

0:01:00.914,0:01:05.382
as if he were a big candy, and makes a chair out of it.

0:01:05.382,0:01:09.017
Or good design is digital fonts that we use all the time

0:01:09.017,0:01:11.146
and that become part of our identity.

0:01:11.146,0:01:12.866
I want people to understand

0:01:12.866,0:01:16.081
that design is so much more than cute chairs,

0:01:16.081,0:01:19.548
that it is first and foremost everything that is around us

0:01:19.548,0:01:21.137
in our life.

0:01:21.137,0:01:23.970
And it's interesting how so much of what we're talking about

0:01:23.970,0:01:27.146
tonight is not simply design but interaction design.

0:01:27.146,0:01:31.023
And in fact, interaction design is what I've been trying

0:01:31.023,0:01:33.401
to insert in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art

0:01:33.401,0:01:36.365
for a few years, starting not very timidly

0:01:36.365,0:01:39.139
but just pointedly with works, for instance,

0:01:39.139,0:01:41.700
by Martin Wattenberg -- the way a machine

0:01:41.700,0:01:44.644
plays chess with itself, that you see here,

0:01:44.644,0:01:48.108
or Lisa Strausfeld and her partners, the Sugar interface

0:01:48.108,0:01:50.218
for One Laptop Per Child,

0:01:50.218,0:01:54.072
Toshio Iwai's Tenori-On musical instruments,

0:01:54.072,0:01:57.284
and Philip Worthington's Shadow Monsters,

0:01:57.284,0:01:59.740
and John Maeda's Reactive Books,

0:01:59.740,0:02:03.905
and also Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar's I Want You To Want Me.

0:02:03.905,0:02:06.596
These were some of the first acquisitions that really

0:02:06.596,0:02:09.780
introduced the idea of interaction design to the public.

0:02:09.780,0:02:14.019
But more recently, I've been trying really to go even deeper

0:02:14.019,0:02:16.252
into interaction design with examples

0:02:16.252,0:02:18.995
that are emotionally really suggestive

0:02:18.995,0:02:21.700
and that really explain interaction design at a level

0:02:21.700,0:02:23.771
that is almost undeniable.

0:02:23.771,0:02:26.851
The Wind Map, by Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas,

0:02:26.851,0:02:29.267
I don't know if you've ever seen it -- it's really fantastic.

0:02:29.267,0:02:31.789
It looks at the territory of the United States

0:02:31.789,0:02:37.514
as if it were a wheat field that is procured by the winds

0:02:37.514,0:02:40.687
and that is really giving you a pictorial image

0:02:40.687,0:02:43.911
of what's going on with the winds in the United States.

0:02:43.911,0:02:48.530
But also, more recently, we started acquiring video games,

0:02:48.530,0:02:51.073
and that's where all hell broke loose

0:02:51.073,0:02:53.241
in a really interesting way. (Laughter)

0:02:53.241,0:02:55.921
There are still people that believe that there's a high and there's a low.

0:02:55.921,0:02:58.895
And that's really what I find so intriguing

0:02:58.895,0:03:03.444
about the reactions that we've had to the anointment

0:03:03.444,0:03:05.680
of video games in the MoMA collection.

0:03:05.680,0:03:08.967
We've -- No, first of all, New York Magazine always gets it.

0:03:08.967,0:03:11.112
I love them. So we are in the right quadrant.

0:03:11.112,0:03:15.346
We are in the Highbrow -- that's daring, that's courageous --

0:03:15.346,0:03:16.769
and Brilliant, which is great.

0:03:16.769,0:03:20.105
Timidly, we've been higher on the diagonal in other situations,

0:03:20.105,0:03:23.472
but it's okay. It's good. It's good. It's good. (Laughter)

0:03:23.472,0:03:26.600
But here comes the art critic. Oh, that was fantastic.

0:03:26.600,0:03:28.816
So the first was Jonathan Jones from The Guardian.

0:03:28.816,0:03:31.484
"Sorry, MoMA, video games are not art."

0:03:31.484,0:03:35.769
Did I ever say they were art? I was talking about interaction design. Excuse me.

0:03:35.769,0:03:39.576
"Exhibiting Pac-Man and Tetris alongside Picasso and Van Gogh" --

0:03:39.576,0:03:42.736
They're two floors away. (Laughter) —

0:03:42.736,0:03:47.404
"will mean game over for any real understanding of art."

0:03:47.404,0:03:51.379
I'm bringing in the end of the world. You know?

0:03:51.379,0:03:53.216
We were talking about the rapture? It's coming.

0:03:53.216,0:03:55.953
And Jonathan Jones is making it happen.

0:03:55.953,0:03:58.727
So the same Guardian rebuts,

0:03:58.727,0:04:01.466
"Are video games art: the debate that shouldn't be.

0:04:01.466,0:04:04.055
Last week, Guardian art critic blah blah suggested

0:04:04.055,0:04:07.369
that games cannot qualify as art. But is he right?

0:04:07.369,0:04:09.844
And does it matter?" Thank you. Does it matter?

0:04:09.844,0:04:12.585
You know, it's like once again there's this whole problem

0:04:12.585,0:04:15.537
of design being often misunderstood for art,

0:04:15.537,0:04:19.404
or the idea that is so diffuse that designers want to

0:04:19.404,0:04:22.729
aspire to, would like to be called, artists.

0:04:22.729,0:04:26.041
No. Designers aspire to be really great designers.

0:04:26.041,0:04:27.954
Thank you very much. And that's more than enough.

0:04:27.954,0:04:31.441
So my knight in shining armor, John Maeda,

0:04:31.441,0:04:34.943
without any prompt, came out with this big declaration

0:04:34.943,0:04:37.313
on why video games belong in the MoMA.

0:04:37.313,0:04:39.473
And that was fantastic. And I thought that was it.

0:04:39.473,0:04:43.129
But then there was another wonderfully pretentious article

0:04:43.129,0:04:46.177
that came out in The New Republic, so pretentious,

0:04:46.177,0:04:50.137
by Liel Leibovitz, and it said, "MoMA has mistaken video games for art." Again.

0:04:50.137,0:04:53.557
"The museum is putting Pac-Man alongside Picasso." Again.

0:04:53.557,0:04:54.676
"That misses the point."

0:04:54.676,0:04:56.534
Excuse me. You're missing the point.

0:04:56.534,0:05:00.582
And here, look, the above question is put bluntly:

0:05:00.582,0:05:03.932
"Are video games art? No. Video games aren't art

0:05:03.932,0:05:08.453
because they are quite thoroughly something else: code."

0:05:08.453,0:05:12.004
Oh, so Picasso is not art because it's oil paint. Right?

0:05:12.004,0:05:14.234
So it's so fantastic to see

0:05:14.234,0:05:17.430
how these feathers that were ruffled,

0:05:17.430,0:05:19.496
and these reactions, were so vehement.

0:05:19.496,0:05:20.555
And you know what?

0:05:20.555,0:05:23.072
The International Cat Video Film Festival

0:05:23.072,0:05:25.505
didn't have that much of a reaction. (Laughter)

0:05:25.505,0:05:27.244
I think this was truly fantastic.

0:05:27.244,0:05:30.219
We were talking about dancing ponies, but I was really jealous

0:05:30.219,0:05:33.535
of the Walker Arts Center for putting up this festival,

0:05:33.535,0:05:35.919
because it's very, very wonderful.

0:05:35.919,0:05:38.859
And there's this Flaubert quote that I love:

0:05:38.859,0:05:40.804
"I have always tried to live in an ivory tower,

0:05:40.804,0:05:43.164
but a tide of shit is beating at its walls,

0:05:43.164,0:05:45.110
threatening to undermine it."

0:05:45.110,0:05:47.255
I consider myself the tide of shit.

0:05:47.255,0:05:52.899
(Laughter) (Applause)

0:05:52.899,0:05:54.589
You know, we have to go through that.

0:05:54.589,0:05:57.365
Even in the 1930s, my colleagues

0:05:57.365,0:05:59.890
that were trying to put together an abstract art show

0:05:59.890,0:06:02.887
had all of these works stopped by the customs officers

0:06:02.887,0:06:04.891
that decided they were not art.

0:06:04.891,0:06:07.459
So it's happened before, and it will happen in the future,

0:06:07.459,0:06:11.739
but right now I can tell you that I am so, so proud

0:06:11.739,0:06:15.963
to be able to call Pac-Man part of the MoMA collection.

0:06:15.963,0:06:21.356
And the same with, for instance, Tetris, original version, the Soviet one.

0:06:21.356,0:06:23.882
And you know, the amount of work --

0:06:23.882,0:06:27.471
yeah, Alexey Pajitnov was working for the Soviet government

0:06:27.471,0:06:29.325
and that's how he developed Tetris,

0:06:29.325,0:06:33.211
and Alexey himself reconstructed the whole game

0:06:33.211,0:06:36.949
and even gave us a simulation of the cathode ray tube

0:06:36.949,0:06:40.460
that makes it look slightly bombed.

0:06:40.460,0:06:41.964
And it's fantastic.

0:06:41.964,0:06:45.128
So behind these acquisitions is an enormous amount of work,

0:06:45.128,0:06:46.531
because we're still the Museum of Modern Art,

0:06:46.531,0:06:48.238
so even when we tackle popular culture,

0:06:48.238,0:06:51.367
we tackle it as a form of interaction design

0:06:51.367,0:06:53.517
and as something that has to go into the collection at MoMA,

0:06:53.517,0:06:55.581
therefore, has to be researched.

0:06:55.581,0:06:58.531
So to get to choosing Eric Chahi's

0:06:58.531,0:07:01.179
wonderful Another World, amongst others,

0:07:01.179,0:07:02.859
we put together a panel of experts,

0:07:02.859,0:07:04.369
and we worked on this acquisition,

0:07:04.369,0:07:07.876
and it's mostly myself and Kate Carmody and Paul Galloway.

0:07:07.876,0:07:10.125
We worked on it for a year and a half.

0:07:10.125,0:07:13.098
So many people helped us — designers of games,

0:07:13.098,0:07:15.268
you might know Jamin Warren

0:07:15.268,0:07:17.756
and his collaborators at Kill Screen magazine,

0:07:17.756,0:07:19.488
and you know, Kevin Slavin. You name it.

0:07:19.488,0:07:22.752
We bugged everybody, because we knew that we were ignorant.

0:07:22.752,0:07:24.898
We were not real gamers enough,

0:07:24.898,0:07:26.954
so we had to really talk to them.

0:07:26.954,0:07:30.515
And so we decided, of course, to have Sim City 2000,

0:07:30.515,0:07:33.443
not the other Sim City, that one in particular,

0:07:33.443,0:07:36.442
so the criteria that we developed along the way

0:07:36.442,0:07:39.691
were really strong, and were not only criteria of selection.

0:07:39.691,0:07:43.875
They were also criteria of exhibition and of preservation.

0:07:43.875,0:07:47.178
That's what makes this acquisition more than a little game

0:07:47.178,0:07:51.069
or a little joke. It's truly a way to think of how to preserve

0:07:51.069,0:07:53.884
and show artifacts that will more and more

0:07:53.884,0:07:55.847
become part of our lives in the future.

0:07:55.847,0:07:58.899
We live today, as you know very well, not in the digital,

0:07:58.899,0:08:02.115
not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone

0:08:02.115,0:08:04.155
that our mind makes of the two.

0:08:04.155,0:08:07.284
And that's really where interaction lies,

0:08:07.284,0:08:09.539
and that's the importance of interaction.

0:08:09.539,0:08:12.683
And in order to explain interaction, we need to really

0:08:12.683,0:08:15.324
bring people in and make them realize

0:08:15.324,0:08:17.030
how interaction is part of their lives.

0:08:17.030,0:08:19.859
So when I talk about it, I don't talk only about video games,

0:08:19.859,0:08:22.372
which are in a way the purest form of interaction,

0:08:22.372,0:08:25.844
unadulterated by any kind of function or finality.

0:08:25.844,0:08:28.991
I also talk about the MetroCard vending machine,

0:08:28.991,0:08:31.117
which I consider a masterpiece of interaction.

0:08:31.117,0:08:33.428
I mean, that interface is beautiful.

0:08:33.428,0:08:37.005
It looks like a burly MTA guy coming out of the tunnel.

0:08:37.005,0:08:40.564
You know, with your mitt you can actually paw

0:08:40.564,0:08:43.833
the MetroCard, and I talk about how bad

0:08:43.833,0:08:46.894
ATM machines usually are.

0:08:46.894,0:08:49.723
So I let people understand that it's up to them

0:08:49.723,0:08:51.965
to know how to judge interaction

0:08:51.965,0:08:53.992
so as to know when it's good or when it's bad.

0:08:53.992,0:08:55.645
So when I show The Sims,

0:08:55.645,0:08:59.122
I try to make people really feel what it meant

0:08:59.122,0:09:01.021
to have an interaction with The Sims,

0:09:01.021,0:09:03.378
not only the fun but also the responsibility

0:09:03.378,0:09:05.253
that came with the Tamagotchi.

0:09:05.253,0:09:07.133
You know, video games can be truly deep

0:09:07.133,0:09:08.877
even when they're completely mindless.

0:09:08.877,0:09:11.405
I'm sure that all of you know Katamari Damacy.

0:09:11.405,0:09:15.126
It's about rolling a ball and picking up as many objects as you can

0:09:15.126,0:09:16.957
in a finite amount of time

0:09:16.957,0:09:19.320
and hopefully you'll be able to make it into a planet.

0:09:19.320,0:09:21.565
I've never made it into a planet, but that's it.

0:09:21.565,0:09:24.733
Or, you know, Vib-Ribbon was not distributed here in the United States.

0:09:24.733,0:09:26.925
It was a PlayStation game, but mostly for Japan.

0:09:26.925,0:09:28.594
And it was one of the first video games

0:09:28.594,0:09:30.295
in which you could choose your own music.

0:09:30.295,0:09:32.617
So you would put into the PlayStation,

0:09:32.617,0:09:34.422
you would put your own CD,

0:09:34.422,0:09:39.184
and then the game would change alongside your music. So really fantastic.

0:09:39.184,0:09:40.595
Not to mention Eve Online.

0:09:40.595,0:09:43.676
Eve Online is an artificial universe, if you wish,

0:09:43.676,0:09:46.229
but one of the diplomats that was killed in Benghazi,

0:09:46.229,0:09:48.837
not Ambassador Stevens, but one of his collaborators,

0:09:48.837,0:09:50.705
was a really big shot in Eve Online,

0:09:50.705,0:09:53.325
so here you have a diplomat in the real world

0:09:53.325,0:09:55.813
that spends his time in Eve Online

0:09:55.813,0:09:59.982
to kind of test, maybe, all of his ideas about diplomacy

0:09:59.982,0:10:02.939
and about universe-building, and to the point that

0:10:02.939,0:10:04.949
the first announcement of the bombing

0:10:04.949,0:10:07.365
was actually given on Eve Online,

0:10:07.365,0:10:09.749
and after his death, several parts of the universe

0:10:09.749,0:10:11.209
were named after him.

0:10:11.209,0:10:15.043
And I was just recently at the Eve Online fan festival

0:10:15.043,0:10:17.181
in Reykjavík that was quite amazing.

0:10:17.181,0:10:19.733
I mean, we're talking about an experience

0:10:19.733,0:10:22.525
that of course can seem weird to many,

0:10:22.525,0:10:24.423
but that is very educational.

0:10:24.423,0:10:27.296
Of course, there are games that are even more educational.

0:10:27.296,0:10:29.988
Dwarf Fortress is like the holy grail

0:10:29.988,0:10:32.377
of this kind of massive multiplayer online game,

0:10:32.377,0:10:34.923
and in fact the two Adams brothers were in Reykjavík,

0:10:34.923,0:10:37.557
and they were greeted

0:10:37.557,0:10:40.765
by a standing ovation by all the Eve Online fans.

0:10:40.765,0:10:43.357
It was amazing to see. And it's a beautiful game.

0:10:43.357,0:10:45.901
So you start seeing here that

0:10:45.901,0:10:47.661
the aesthetics that are so important

0:10:47.661,0:10:49.504
to a museum collection like MoMA's

0:10:49.504,0:10:53.165
are kept alive also by the selection of these games.

0:10:53.165,0:10:55.125
And you know, Valve -- you know, Portal --

0:10:55.125,0:10:57.248
is an example of a video game in which

0:10:57.248,0:10:59.562
you have a certain type of violence

0:10:59.562,0:11:01.661
which also leads me to talk about

0:11:01.661,0:11:04.007
one of the biggest issues that we had to discuss

0:11:04.007,0:11:06.267
when we acquired the video games, what to do with violence.

0:11:06.267,0:11:08.671
Right? We had to make decisions.

0:11:08.671,0:11:12.229
At MoMA, interestingly, there's a lot of violence

0:11:12.229,0:11:15.133
depicted in the art part of the collection,

0:11:15.133,0:11:18.349
but when I came to MoMA 19 years ago, and as an Italian,

0:11:18.349,0:11:19.900
I said, "You know what, we need a Beretta."

0:11:19.900,0:11:23.013
And I was told, "No. No guns in the design collection."

0:11:23.013,0:11:23.945
And I was like, "Why?"

0:11:23.945,0:11:27.461
Interestingly, I learned that it's considered

0:11:27.461,0:11:29.211
that in design and in the design collection,

0:11:29.211,0:11:30.448
what you see is what you get.

0:11:30.448,0:11:34.338
So when you see a gun, it's an instrument for killing in the design collection.

0:11:34.338,0:11:35.951
If it's in the art collection,

0:11:35.951,0:11:39.695
it might be a critique of the killing instrument.

0:11:39.695,0:11:41.401
So it's very interesting.

0:11:41.401,0:11:44.040
But we are acquiring our critical dimension also in design,

0:11:44.040,0:11:46.531
so maybe one day we'll be able to acquire also the guns.

0:11:46.531,0:11:49.795
But here, in this particular case, we decided,

0:11:49.795,0:11:51.078
you know, with Kate and Paul,

0:11:51.078,0:11:53.337
that we would have no gratuitous violence.

0:11:53.337,0:11:56.089
So we have Portal because you shoot walls

0:11:56.089,0:11:57.409
in order to create new spaces.

0:11:57.409,0:12:00.514
We have Street Fighter II, because martial arts are good.

0:12:00.514,0:12:02.030
(Laughter)

0:12:02.030,0:12:06.132
But we don't have GTA because,

0:12:06.132,0:12:07.739
maybe it's my own reflection,

0:12:07.739,0:12:10.122
I've never been able to do anything but crashing cars

0:12:10.122,0:12:12.082
and shooting prostitutes and pimps.

0:12:12.082,0:12:15.623
So it was not very constructive. (Laughter)

0:12:15.623,0:12:19.869
So, I'm making fun of it, but we discussed this

0:12:19.869,0:12:22.956
for so many days. You have no idea.

0:12:22.956,0:12:25.283
And to this day, I am ambivalent,

0:12:25.283,0:12:28.699
but when you have instead games like Flow, there's no doubt.

0:12:28.699,0:12:31.899
It's like, it's about serenity and it's about sublime.

0:12:31.899,0:12:36.185
It's about experiencing what it means to be a sea creature.

0:12:36.185,0:12:40.010
Then we have a few also side-scrollers -- classical ones.

0:12:40.010,0:12:41.844
So it's quite a hefty collection.

0:12:41.844,0:12:44.102
And right now, we started with the first 14,

0:12:44.102,0:12:45.995
but we have several that are coming up,

0:12:45.995,0:12:47.907
and the reason why we haven't acquired them yet

0:12:47.907,0:12:50.335
is because you don't acquire just the game.

0:12:50.335,0:12:52.409
You acquire the relationship with the company.

0:12:52.409,0:12:55.507
What we want, what we aspire to, is the code.

0:12:55.507,0:12:56.904
It's very hard to get, of course.

0:12:56.904,0:12:58.777
But that's what would enable us to preserve

0:12:58.777,0:13:00.766
the video games for a really long time,

0:13:00.766,0:13:02.039
and that's what museums do.

0:13:02.039,0:13:04.640
They also preserve artifacts for posterity.

0:13:04.640,0:13:07.260
In absence of the code, because, you know,

0:13:07.260,0:13:11.027
video game companies are not very forthcoming in some cases,

0:13:11.027,0:13:14.523
in absence of that, we acquire the relationship with the company.

0:13:14.523,0:13:15.803
We're going to stay with them forever.

0:13:15.803,0:13:17.036
They're not going to get rid of us.

0:13:17.036,0:13:20.507
And one day, we'll get that code. (Laughter)

0:13:20.507,0:13:23.675
But I want to explain to you the criteria that we chose

0:13:23.675,0:13:26.697
for interaction design. Aesthetics are really important.

0:13:26.697,0:13:28.738
And I'm showing you Core War here,

0:13:28.738,0:13:32.053
which is an early game that takes advantage aesthetically

0:13:32.053,0:13:33.874
of the limitations of the processor.

0:13:33.874,0:13:37.123
So the kind of interferences that you see here

0:13:37.123,0:13:39.767
that look like beautiful barriers in the game

0:13:39.767,0:13:44.114
are actually a consequence of the processor's limitedness,

0:13:44.114,0:13:47.194
which is fantastic. So aesthetics is always important.

0:13:47.194,0:13:51.198
And so is space, the spatial aspect of games.

0:13:51.198,0:13:53.342
You know, I feel that the best video games

0:13:53.342,0:13:56.878
are the ones that have really savvy architects

0:13:56.878,0:13:59.501
that are behind them, and if they're not architects,

0:13:59.501,0:14:02.139
bona fide trained in architecture, they have that feeling.

0:14:02.139,0:14:06.227
But the spatial evolution in video games is extremely important.

0:14:06.227,0:14:09.187
Time. The way we experience time in video games,

0:14:09.187,0:14:11.969
as in other forms of interaction design,

0:14:11.969,0:14:13.228
is really quite amazing.

0:14:13.228,0:14:16.233
It can be real time or it can be the time within the game,

0:14:16.233,0:14:18.449
as is in Animal Crossing, where seasons

0:14:18.449,0:14:21.041
follow each other at their own pace.

0:14:21.041,0:14:24.320
So time, space, aesthetics,

0:14:24.320,0:14:26.689
and then, most important, behavior.

0:14:26.689,0:14:30.809
The real core issue of interaction design is behavior.

0:14:30.809,0:14:34.286
Designers that deal with interaction design behaviors

0:14:34.286,0:14:36.601
that go to influence the rest of our lives.

0:14:36.601,0:14:39.136
They're not just limited to our interaction with the screen.

0:14:39.136,0:14:41.185
In this case, I'm showing you Marble Madness,

0:14:41.185,0:14:42.386
which is a beautiful game

0:14:42.386,0:14:45.657
in which the controller is a big sphere that vibrates with you,

0:14:45.657,0:14:48.090
so you have a sphere that's moving in this landscape,

0:14:48.090,0:14:52.622
and the sphere, the controller itself, gives you a sense of the movement.

0:14:52.622,0:14:54.977
In a way, you can see how video games

0:14:54.977,0:14:57.689
are the purest aspect of interaction design

0:14:57.689,0:15:02.308
and are very useful to explain what interaction is.

0:15:02.308,0:15:04.393
We don't want to show the video games

0:15:04.393,0:15:07.335
with the paraphernalia. No arcade nostalgia.

0:15:07.335,0:15:09.017
If anything, we want to show the code,

0:15:09.017,0:15:12.031
and here you see Ben Fry's distellamap of Pac-Man,

0:15:12.031,0:15:13.520
of the Pac-Man code.

0:15:13.520,0:15:17.859
So the way we acquired the games is very interesting

0:15:17.859,0:15:20.055
and very unorthodox. You see them here

0:15:20.055,0:15:24.063
displayed alongside other examples of design,

0:15:24.063,0:15:25.673
furniture and other parts,

0:15:25.673,0:15:28.901
but there's no paraphernalia, no nostalagia,

0:15:28.901,0:15:31.850
only the screen and a little shelf with the controllers.

0:15:31.850,0:15:33.994
The controllers are, of course, part of the experience,

0:15:33.994,0:15:36.443
so you cannot do away with it.

0:15:36.443,0:15:40.941
But interestingly, this choice was not condemned

0:15:40.941,0:15:42.286
too vehemently by gamers.

0:15:42.286,0:15:43.593
I was afraid that they would kill us,

0:15:43.593,0:15:45.659
and instead they understood, especially

0:15:45.659,0:15:48.363
when I told them that I was trying to apply the same stratagem

0:15:48.363,0:15:51.505
that Philip Johnson applied in 1934

0:15:51.505,0:15:53.547
when he wanted to make people understand

0:15:53.547,0:15:55.859
the importance of design, and he took propeller blades

0:15:55.859,0:15:58.139
and pieces of machinery and

0:15:58.139,0:16:01.266
in the MoMA galleries he put them on white pedestals

0:16:01.266,0:16:04.483
against white walls, as if they were Brancusi sculptures.

0:16:04.483,0:16:08.211
He created this strange distance, this shock,

0:16:08.211,0:16:11.869
that made people realize how gorgeous formally,

0:16:11.869,0:16:15.637
and also important functionally, design pieces were.

0:16:15.637,0:16:17.891
I would like to do the same with video games.

0:16:17.891,0:16:20.971
By getting rid of the sticky carpets and the cigarette butts

0:16:20.971,0:16:23.579
and everything else that we might remember from our childhood,

0:16:23.579,0:16:28.150
I want people to understand

0:16:28.150,0:16:30.019
that those are important forms of design.

0:16:30.019,0:16:33.197
And in a way, the video games, the fonts and everything else

0:16:33.197,0:16:35.881
lead us to make people understand

0:16:35.881,0:16:38.223
a wider meaning for design.

0:16:38.223,0:16:40.276
One of my dream acquisitions,

0:16:40.276,0:16:42.191
which has been on hold for a few years

0:16:42.191,0:16:45.193
but now will come back on the front burner,

0:16:45.193,0:16:46.625
is a 747.

0:16:46.625,0:16:49.563
I would like to acquire it, but without owning it.

0:16:49.563,0:16:52.874
I don't want it to be at MoMA and possessed by MoMA.

0:16:52.874,0:16:54.258
I want it to keep flying.

0:16:54.258,0:16:57.798
So it's an acquisition where MoMA makes an arrangement

0:16:57.798,0:17:02.565
with an airline and keeps the Boeing 747 flying.

0:17:02.565,0:17:05.683
And the same with the "@" sign that we acquired a few years ago.

0:17:05.683,0:17:07.865
It was the first example of an acquisition of something

0:17:07.865,0:17:09.270
that is in the public domain.

0:17:09.270,0:17:11.030
And what I say to people, it's almost as if

0:17:11.030,0:17:13.004
a butterfly were flying by

0:17:13.004,0:17:16.153
and we captured the shadow on the wall,

0:17:16.153,0:17:17.610
and just we're showing the shadow.

0:17:17.610,0:17:19.818
So in a way, we're showing a manifestation

0:17:19.818,0:17:22.331
of something that is truly important

0:17:22.331,0:17:25.962
and that is part of our identity but that nobody can have.

0:17:25.962,0:17:27.898
And it's too long to explain the acquisition,

0:17:27.898,0:17:30.404
but if you want to go on the MoMA blog,

0:17:30.404,0:17:32.498
there's a long post where I explain why

0:17:32.498,0:17:34.786
it's such a great example of design.

0:17:34.786,0:17:38.147
Along the way, I've had to burn a few chairs. You know?

0:17:38.147,0:17:42.466
I've had to do away with a few concepts of design past.

0:17:42.466,0:17:45.282
But I see that people are coming along,

0:17:45.282,0:17:47.032
that the audiences, paradoxically,

0:17:47.032,0:17:49.858
are much more responsive and much more understanding

0:17:49.858,0:17:53.916
of this expansion of design than some of my colleagues are.

0:17:53.916,0:17:55.443
Design is truly everywhere,

0:17:55.443,0:17:58.411
and design is as important as anything,

0:17:58.411,0:18:00.871
and I'm so glad that, because of its diversity

0:18:00.871,0:18:03.186
and because of its centrality to our lives,

0:18:03.186,0:18:04.899
many more people are coming to it

0:18:04.914,0:18:07.003
as a profession, as a passion,

0:18:07.003,0:18:09.977
and as, very simply, part of their own culture.

0:18:09.977,0:18:11.120
Thank you very much.

0:18:11.120,0:18:15.215
(Applause)