WEBVTT 00:00:00.392 --> 00:00:02.586 I'm almost like a crazy evangelical. 00:00:02.586 --> 00:00:05.331 I've always known that the age of design is upon us, 00:00:05.331 --> 00:00:07.412 almost like a rapture. 00:00:07.412 --> 00:00:08.947 If the day is sunny, I think, 00:00:08.947 --> 00:00:11.472 "Oh, the gods have had a good design day." 00:00:11.472 --> 00:00:15.788 Or, I go to a show and I see a beautiful piece by an artist, 00:00:15.788 --> 00:00:17.090 particularly beautiful, I say 00:00:17.090 --> 00:00:20.090 he's so good because he clearly looked to design 00:00:20.090 --> 00:00:21.813 to understand what he needed to do. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:21.813 --> 00:00:24.514 So I really do believe that design 00:00:24.514 --> 00:00:27.276 is the highest form of creative expression. 00:00:27.276 --> 00:00:30.986 That's why I'm talking to you today about the age of design, 00:00:30.986 --> 00:00:33.181 and the age of design is the age in which design 00:00:33.181 --> 00:00:37.020 is still cute furniture, is still posters, 00:00:37.020 --> 00:00:39.878 is still fast cars, what you see at MoMA today. 00:00:39.878 --> 00:00:43.703 But in truth, what I really would like to explain 00:00:43.703 --> 00:00:46.005 to the public and to the audiences of MoMA is that 00:00:46.005 --> 00:00:48.668 the most interesting chairs are the ones 00:00:48.668 --> 00:00:51.545 that are actually made by a robot, 00:00:51.545 --> 00:00:54.326 like this beautiful chair by Dirk Vander Kooij, 00:00:54.326 --> 00:00:58.058 where a robot deposits a toothpaste-like slur 00:00:58.058 --> 00:01:00.914 of recycled refrigerator parts, 00:01:00.914 --> 00:01:05.382 as if he were a big candy, and makes a chair out of it. 00:01:05.382 --> 00:01:09.017 Or good design is digital fonts that we use all the time 00:01:09.017 --> 00:01:11.146 and that become part of our identity. 00:01:11.146 --> 00:01:12.866 I want people to understand 00:01:12.866 --> 00:01:16.081 that design is so much more than cute chairs, 00:01:16.081 --> 00:01:19.548 that it is first and foremost everything that is around us 00:01:19.548 --> 00:01:21.137 in our life. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:21.137 --> 00:01:23.970 And it's interesting how so much of what we're talking about 00:01:23.970 --> 00:01:27.146 tonight is not simply design but interaction design. 00:01:27.146 --> 00:01:31.023 And in fact, interaction design is what I've been trying 00:01:31.023 --> 00:01:33.401 to insert in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art 00:01:33.401 --> 00:01:36.365 for a few years, starting not very timidly 00:01:36.365 --> 00:01:39.139 but just pointedly with works, for instance, 00:01:39.139 --> 00:01:41.700 by Martin Wattenberg -- the way a machine 00:01:41.700 --> 00:01:44.644 plays chess with itself, that you see here, 00:01:44.644 --> 00:01:48.108 or Lisa Strausfeld and her partners, the Sugar interface 00:01:48.108 --> 00:01:50.218 for One Laptop Per Child, 00:01:50.218 --> 00:01:54.072 Toshio Iwai's Tenori-On musical instruments, 00:01:54.072 --> 00:01:57.284 and Philip Worthington's Shadow Monsters, 00:01:57.284 --> 00:01:59.740 and John Maeda's Reactive Books, 00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:03.905 and also Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar's I Want You To Want Me. 00:02:03.905 --> 00:02:06.596 These were some of the first acquisitions that really 00:02:06.596 --> 00:02:09.780 introduced the idea of interaction design to the public. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:09.780 --> 00:02:14.019 But more recently, I've been trying really to go even deeper 00:02:14.019 --> 00:02:16.252 into interaction design with examples 00:02:16.252 --> 00:02:18.995 that are emotionally really suggestive 00:02:18.995 --> 00:02:21.700 and that really explain interaction design at a level 00:02:21.700 --> 00:02:23.771 that is almost undeniable. 00:02:23.771 --> 00:02:26.851 The Wind Map, by Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas, 00:02:26.851 --> 00:02:29.267 I don't know if you've ever seen it -- it's really fantastic. 00:02:29.267 --> 00:02:31.789 It looks at the territory of the United States 00:02:31.789 --> 00:02:37.514 as if it were a wheat field that is procured by the winds 00:02:37.514 --> 00:02:40.687 and that is really giving you a pictorial image 00:02:40.687 --> 00:02:43.911 of what's going on with the winds in the United States. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:43.911 --> 00:02:48.530 But also, more recently, we started acquiring video games, 00:02:48.530 --> 00:02:51.073 and that's where all hell broke loose 00:02:51.073 --> 00:02:53.241 in a really interesting way. (Laughter) 00:02:53.241 --> 00:02:55.921 There are still people that believe that there's a high and there's a low. 00:02:55.921 --> 00:02:58.895 And that's really what I find so intriguing 00:02:58.895 --> 00:03:03.444 about the reactions that we've had to the anointment 00:03:03.444 --> 00:03:05.680 of video games in the MoMA collection. 00:03:05.680 --> 00:03:08.967 We've -- No, first of all, New York Magazine always gets it. 00:03:08.967 --> 00:03:11.112 I love them. So we are in the right quadrant. 00:03:11.112 --> 00:03:15.346 We are in the Highbrow -- that's daring, that's courageous -- 00:03:15.346 --> 00:03:16.769 and Brilliant, which is great. 00:03:16.769 --> 00:03:20.105 Timidly, we've been higher on the diagonal in other situations, 00:03:20.105 --> 00:03:23.472 but it's okay. It's good. It's good. It's good. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:23.472 --> 00:03:26.600 But here comes the art critic. Oh, that was fantastic. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:26.600 --> 00:03:28.816 So the first was Jonathan Jones from The Guardian. 00:03:28.816 --> 00:03:31.484 "Sorry, MoMA, video games are not art." 00:03:31.484 --> 00:03:35.769 Did I ever say they were art? I was talking about interaction design. Excuse me. 00:03:35.769 --> 00:03:39.576 "Exhibiting Pac-Man and Tetris alongside Picasso and Van Gogh" -- 00:03:39.576 --> 00:03:42.736 They're two floors away. (Laughter) — 00:03:42.736 --> 00:03:47.404 "will mean game over for any real understanding of art." 00:03:47.404 --> 00:03:51.379 I'm bringing in the end of the world. You know? 00:03:51.379 --> 00:03:53.216 We were talking about the rapture? It's coming. 00:03:53.216 --> 00:03:55.953 And Jonathan Jones is making it happen. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:55.953 --> 00:03:58.727 So the same Guardian rebuts, 00:03:58.727 --> 00:04:01.466 "Are video games art: the debate that shouldn't be. 00:04:01.466 --> 00:04:04.055 Last week, Guardian art critic blah blah suggested 00:04:04.055 --> 00:04:07.369 that games cannot qualify as art. But is he right? 00:04:07.369 --> 00:04:09.844 And does it matter?" Thank you. Does it matter? NOTE Paragraph 00:04:09.844 --> 00:04:12.585 You know, it's like once again there's this whole problem 00:04:12.585 --> 00:04:15.537 of design being often misunderstood for art, 00:04:15.537 --> 00:04:19.404 or the idea that is so diffuse that designers want to 00:04:19.404 --> 00:04:22.729 aspire to, would like to be called, artists. 00:04:22.729 --> 00:04:26.041 No. Designers aspire to be really great designers. 00:04:26.041 --> 00:04:27.954 Thank you very much. And that's more than enough. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:27.954 --> 00:04:31.441 So my knight in shining armor, John Maeda, 00:04:31.441 --> 00:04:34.943 without any prompt, came out with this big declaration 00:04:34.943 --> 00:04:37.313 on why video games belong in the MoMA. 00:04:37.313 --> 00:04:39.473 And that was fantastic. And I thought that was it. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:39.473 --> 00:04:43.129 But then there was another wonderfully pretentious article 00:04:43.129 --> 00:04:46.177 that came out in The New Republic, so pretentious, 00:04:46.177 --> 00:04:50.137 by Liel Leibovitz, and it said, "MoMA has mistaken video games for art." Again. 00:04:50.137 --> 00:04:53.557 "The museum is putting Pac-Man alongside Picasso." Again. 00:04:53.557 --> 00:04:54.676 "That misses the point." 00:04:54.676 --> 00:04:56.534 Excuse me. You're missing the point. 00:04:56.534 --> 00:05:00.582 And here, look, the above question is put bluntly: 00:05:00.582 --> 00:05:03.932 "Are video games art? No. Video games aren't art 00:05:03.932 --> 00:05:08.453 because they are quite thoroughly something else: code." 00:05:08.453 --> 00:05:12.004 Oh, so Picasso is not art because it's oil paint. Right? NOTE Paragraph 00:05:12.004 --> 00:05:14.234 So it's so fantastic to see 00:05:14.234 --> 00:05:17.430 how these feathers that were ruffled, 00:05:17.430 --> 00:05:19.496 and these reactions, were so vehement. 00:05:19.496 --> 00:05:20.555 And you know what? 00:05:20.555 --> 00:05:23.072 The International Cat Video Film Festival 00:05:23.072 --> 00:05:25.505 didn't have that much of a reaction. (Laughter) 00:05:25.505 --> 00:05:27.244 I think this was truly fantastic. 00:05:27.244 --> 00:05:30.219 We were talking about dancing ponies, but I was really jealous 00:05:30.219 --> 00:05:33.535 of the Walker Arts Center for putting up this festival, 00:05:33.535 --> 00:05:35.919 because it's very, very wonderful. 00:05:35.919 --> 00:05:38.859 And there's this Flaubert quote that I love: 00:05:38.859 --> 00:05:40.804 "I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, 00:05:40.804 --> 00:05:43.164 but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, 00:05:43.164 --> 00:05:45.110 threatening to undermine it." 00:05:45.110 --> 00:05:47.255 I consider myself the tide of shit. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:47.255 --> 00:05:52.899 (Laughter) (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:05:52.899 --> 00:05:54.589 You know, we have to go through that. 00:05:54.589 --> 00:05:57.365 Even in the 1930s, my colleagues 00:05:57.365 --> 00:05:59.890 that were trying to put together an abstract art show 00:05:59.890 --> 00:06:02.887 had all of these works stopped by the customs officers 00:06:02.887 --> 00:06:04.891 that decided they were not art. 00:06:04.891 --> 00:06:07.459 So it's happened before, and it will happen in the future, 00:06:07.459 --> 00:06:11.739 but right now I can tell you that I am so, so proud 00:06:11.739 --> 00:06:15.963 to be able to call Pac-Man part of the MoMA collection. 00:06:15.963 --> 00:06:21.356 And the same with, for instance, Tetris, original version, the Soviet one. 00:06:21.356 --> 00:06:23.882 And you know, the amount of work -- 00:06:23.882 --> 00:06:27.471 yeah, Alexey Pajitnov was working for the Soviet government 00:06:27.471 --> 00:06:29.325 and that's how he developed Tetris, 00:06:29.325 --> 00:06:33.211 and Alexey himself reconstructed the whole game 00:06:33.211 --> 00:06:36.949 and even gave us a simulation of the cathode ray tube 00:06:36.949 --> 00:06:40.460 that makes it look slightly bombed. 00:06:40.460 --> 00:06:41.964 And it's fantastic. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:41.964 --> 00:06:45.128 So behind these acquisitions is an enormous amount of work, 00:06:45.128 --> 00:06:46.531 because we're still the Museum of Modern Art, 00:06:46.531 --> 00:06:48.238 so even when we tackle popular culture, 00:06:48.238 --> 00:06:51.367 we tackle it as a form of interaction design 00:06:51.367 --> 00:06:53.517 and as something that has to go into the collection at MoMA, 00:06:53.517 --> 00:06:55.581 therefore, has to be researched. 00:06:55.581 --> 00:06:58.531 So to get to choosing Eric Chahi's 00:06:58.531 --> 00:07:01.179 wonderful Another World, amongst others, 00:07:01.179 --> 00:07:02.859 we put together a panel of experts, 00:07:02.859 --> 00:07:04.369 and we worked on this acquisition, 00:07:04.369 --> 00:07:07.876 and it's mostly myself and Kate Carmody and Paul Galloway. 00:07:07.876 --> 00:07:10.125 We worked on it for a year and a half. 00:07:10.125 --> 00:07:13.098 So many people helped us — designers of games, 00:07:13.098 --> 00:07:15.268 you might know Jamin Warren 00:07:15.268 --> 00:07:17.756 and his collaborators at Kill Screen magazine, 00:07:17.756 --> 00:07:19.488 and you know, Kevin Slavin. You name it. 00:07:19.488 --> 00:07:22.752 We bugged everybody, because we knew that we were ignorant. 00:07:22.752 --> 00:07:24.898 We were not real gamers enough, 00:07:24.898 --> 00:07:26.954 so we had to really talk to them. 00:07:26.954 --> 00:07:30.515 And so we decided, of course, to have Sim City 2000, 00:07:30.515 --> 00:07:33.443 not the other Sim City, that one in particular, 00:07:33.443 --> 00:07:36.442 so the criteria that we developed along the way 00:07:36.442 --> 00:07:39.691 were really strong, and were not only criteria of selection. 00:07:39.691 --> 00:07:43.875 They were also criteria of exhibition and of preservation. 00:07:43.875 --> 00:07:47.178 That's what makes this acquisition more than a little game 00:07:47.178 --> 00:07:51.069 or a little joke. It's truly a way to think of how to preserve 00:07:51.069 --> 00:07:53.884 and show artifacts that will more and more 00:07:53.884 --> 00:07:55.847 become part of our lives in the future. 00:07:55.847 --> 00:07:58.899 We live today, as you know very well, not in the digital, 00:07:58.899 --> 00:08:02.115 not in the physical, but in the kind of minestrone 00:08:02.115 --> 00:08:04.155 that our mind makes of the two. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:04.155 --> 00:08:07.284 And that's really where interaction lies, 00:08:07.284 --> 00:08:09.539 and that's the importance of interaction. 00:08:09.539 --> 00:08:12.683 And in order to explain interaction, we need to really 00:08:12.683 --> 00:08:15.324 bring people in and make them realize 00:08:15.324 --> 00:08:17.030 how interaction is part of their lives. 00:08:17.030 --> 00:08:19.859 So when I talk about it, I don't talk only about video games, 00:08:19.859 --> 00:08:22.372 which are in a way the purest form of interaction, 00:08:22.372 --> 00:08:25.844 unadulterated by any kind of function or finality. 00:08:25.844 --> 00:08:28.991 I also talk about the MetroCard vending machine, 00:08:28.991 --> 00:08:31.117 which I consider a masterpiece of interaction. 00:08:31.117 --> 00:08:33.428 I mean, that interface is beautiful. 00:08:33.428 --> 00:08:37.005 It looks like a burly MTA guy coming out of the tunnel. 00:08:37.005 --> 00:08:40.564 You know, with your mitt you can actually paw 00:08:40.564 --> 00:08:43.833 the MetroCard, and I talk about how bad 00:08:43.833 --> 00:08:46.894 ATM machines usually are. 00:08:46.894 --> 00:08:49.723 So I let people understand that it's up to them 00:08:49.723 --> 00:08:51.965 to know how to judge interaction 00:08:51.965 --> 00:08:53.992 so as to know when it's good or when it's bad. 00:08:53.992 --> 00:08:55.645 So when I show The Sims, 00:08:55.645 --> 00:08:59.122 I try to make people really feel what it meant 00:08:59.122 --> 00:09:01.021 to have an interaction with The Sims, 00:09:01.021 --> 00:09:03.378 not only the fun but also the responsibility 00:09:03.378 --> 00:09:05.253 that came with the Tamagotchi. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:05.253 --> 00:09:07.133 You know, video games can be truly deep 00:09:07.133 --> 00:09:08.877 even when they're completely mindless. 00:09:08.877 --> 00:09:11.405 I'm sure that all of you know Katamari Damacy. 00:09:11.405 --> 00:09:15.126 It's about rolling a ball and picking up as many objects as you can 00:09:15.126 --> 00:09:16.957 in a finite amount of time 00:09:16.957 --> 00:09:19.320 and hopefully you'll be able to make it into a planet. 00:09:19.320 --> 00:09:21.565 I've never made it into a planet, but that's it. 00:09:21.565 --> 00:09:24.733 Or, you know, Vib-Ribbon was not distributed here in the United States. 00:09:24.733 --> 00:09:26.925 It was a PlayStation game, but mostly for Japan. 00:09:26.925 --> 00:09:28.594 And it was one of the first video games 00:09:28.594 --> 00:09:30.295 in which you could choose your own music. 00:09:30.295 --> 00:09:32.617 So you would put into the PlayStation, 00:09:32.617 --> 00:09:34.422 you would put your own CD, 00:09:34.422 --> 00:09:39.184 and then the game would change alongside your music. So really fantastic. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:39.184 --> 00:09:40.595 Not to mention Eve Online. 00:09:40.595 --> 00:09:43.676 Eve Online is an artificial universe, if you wish, 00:09:43.676 --> 00:09:46.229 but one of the diplomats that was killed in Benghazi, 00:09:46.229 --> 00:09:48.837 not Ambassador Stevens, but one of his collaborators, 00:09:48.837 --> 00:09:50.705 was a really big shot in Eve Online, 00:09:50.705 --> 00:09:53.325 so here you have a diplomat in the real world 00:09:53.325 --> 00:09:55.813 that spends his time in Eve Online 00:09:55.813 --> 00:09:59.982 to kind of test, maybe, all of his ideas about diplomacy 00:09:59.982 --> 00:10:02.939 and about universe-building, and to the point that 00:10:02.939 --> 00:10:04.949 the first announcement of the bombing 00:10:04.949 --> 00:10:07.365 was actually given on Eve Online, 00:10:07.365 --> 00:10:09.749 and after his death, several parts of the universe 00:10:09.749 --> 00:10:11.209 were named after him. 00:10:11.209 --> 00:10:15.043 And I was just recently at the Eve Online fan festival 00:10:15.043 --> 00:10:17.181 in Reykjavík that was quite amazing. 00:10:17.181 --> 00:10:19.733 I mean, we're talking about an experience 00:10:19.733 --> 00:10:22.525 that of course can seem weird to many, 00:10:22.525 --> 00:10:24.423 but that is very educational. 00:10:24.423 --> 00:10:27.296 Of course, there are games that are even more educational. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:27.296 --> 00:10:29.988 Dwarf Fortress is like the holy grail 00:10:29.988 --> 00:10:32.377 of this kind of massive multiplayer online game, 00:10:32.377 --> 00:10:34.923 and in fact the two Adams brothers were in Reykjavík, 00:10:34.923 --> 00:10:37.557 and they were greeted 00:10:37.557 --> 00:10:40.765 by a standing ovation by all the Eve Online fans. 00:10:40.765 --> 00:10:43.357 It was amazing to see. And it's a beautiful game. 00:10:43.357 --> 00:10:45.901 So you start seeing here that 00:10:45.901 --> 00:10:47.661 the aesthetics that are so important 00:10:47.661 --> 00:10:49.504 to a museum collection like MoMA's 00:10:49.504 --> 00:10:53.165 are kept alive also by the selection of these games. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:53.165 --> 00:10:55.125 And you know, Valve -- you know, Portal -- 00:10:55.125 --> 00:10:57.248 is an example of a video game in which 00:10:57.248 --> 00:10:59.562 you have a certain type of violence 00:10:59.562 --> 00:11:01.661 which also leads me to talk about 00:11:01.661 --> 00:11:04.007 one of the biggest issues that we had to discuss 00:11:04.007 --> 00:11:06.267 when we acquired the video games, what to do with violence. 00:11:06.267 --> 00:11:08.671 Right? We had to make decisions. 00:11:08.671 --> 00:11:12.229 At MoMA, interestingly, there's a lot of violence 00:11:12.229 --> 00:11:15.133 depicted in the art part of the collection, 00:11:15.133 --> 00:11:18.349 but when I came to MoMA 19 years ago, and as an Italian, 00:11:18.349 --> 00:11:19.900 I said, "You know what, we need a Beretta." 00:11:19.900 --> 00:11:23.013 And I was told, "No. No guns in the design collection." 00:11:23.013 --> 00:11:23.945 And I was like, "Why?" 00:11:23.945 --> 00:11:27.461 Interestingly, I learned that it's considered 00:11:27.461 --> 00:11:29.211 that in design and in the design collection, 00:11:29.211 --> 00:11:30.448 what you see is what you get. 00:11:30.448 --> 00:11:34.338 So when you see a gun, it's an instrument for killing in the design collection. 00:11:34.338 --> 00:11:35.951 If it's in the art collection, 00:11:35.951 --> 00:11:39.695 it might be a critique of the killing instrument. 00:11:39.695 --> 00:11:41.401 So it's very interesting. 00:11:41.401 --> 00:11:44.040 But we are acquiring our critical dimension also in design, 00:11:44.040 --> 00:11:46.531 so maybe one day we'll be able to acquire also the guns. 00:11:46.531 --> 00:11:49.795 But here, in this particular case, we decided, 00:11:49.795 --> 00:11:51.078 you know, with Kate and Paul, 00:11:51.078 --> 00:11:53.337 that we would have no gratuitous violence. 00:11:53.337 --> 00:11:56.089 So we have Portal because you shoot walls 00:11:56.089 --> 00:11:57.409 in order to create new spaces. 00:11:57.409 --> 00:12:00.514 We have Street Fighter II, because martial arts are good. 00:12:00.514 --> 00:12:02.030 (Laughter) 00:12:02.030 --> 00:12:06.132 But we don't have GTA because, 00:12:06.132 --> 00:12:07.739 maybe it's my own reflection, 00:12:07.739 --> 00:12:10.122 I've never been able to do anything but crashing cars 00:12:10.122 --> 00:12:12.082 and shooting prostitutes and pimps. 00:12:12.082 --> 00:12:15.623 So it was not very constructive. (Laughter) 00:12:15.623 --> 00:12:19.869 So, I'm making fun of it, but we discussed this 00:12:19.869 --> 00:12:22.956 for so many days. You have no idea. 00:12:22.956 --> 00:12:25.283 And to this day, I am ambivalent, 00:12:25.283 --> 00:12:28.699 but when you have instead games like Flow, there's no doubt. 00:12:28.699 --> 00:12:31.899 It's like, it's about serenity and it's about sublime. 00:12:31.899 --> 00:12:36.185 It's about experiencing what it means to be a sea creature. 00:12:36.185 --> 00:12:40.010 Then we have a few also side-scrollers -- classical ones. 00:12:40.010 --> 00:12:41.844 So it's quite a hefty collection. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:41.844 --> 00:12:44.102 And right now, we started with the first 14, 00:12:44.102 --> 00:12:45.995 but we have several that are coming up, 00:12:45.995 --> 00:12:47.907 and the reason why we haven't acquired them yet 00:12:47.907 --> 00:12:50.335 is because you don't acquire just the game. 00:12:50.335 --> 00:12:52.409 You acquire the relationship with the company. 00:12:52.409 --> 00:12:55.507 What we want, what we aspire to, is the code. 00:12:55.507 --> 00:12:56.904 It's very hard to get, of course. 00:12:56.904 --> 00:12:58.777 But that's what would enable us to preserve 00:12:58.777 --> 00:13:00.766 the video games for a really long time, 00:13:00.766 --> 00:13:02.039 and that's what museums do. 00:13:02.039 --> 00:13:04.640 They also preserve artifacts for posterity. 00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:07.260 In absence of the code, because, you know, 00:13:07.260 --> 00:13:11.027 video game companies are not very forthcoming in some cases, 00:13:11.027 --> 00:13:14.523 in absence of that, we acquire the relationship with the company. 00:13:14.523 --> 00:13:15.803 We're going to stay with them forever. 00:13:15.803 --> 00:13:17.036 They're not going to get rid of us. 00:13:17.036 --> 00:13:20.507 And one day, we'll get that code. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:20.507 --> 00:13:23.675 But I want to explain to you the criteria that we chose 00:13:23.675 --> 00:13:26.697 for interaction design. Aesthetics are really important. 00:13:26.697 --> 00:13:28.738 And I'm showing you Core War here, 00:13:28.738 --> 00:13:32.053 which is an early game that takes advantage aesthetically 00:13:32.053 --> 00:13:33.874 of the limitations of the processor. 00:13:33.874 --> 00:13:37.123 So the kind of interferences that you see here 00:13:37.123 --> 00:13:39.767 that look like beautiful barriers in the game 00:13:39.767 --> 00:13:44.114 are actually a consequence of the processor's limitedness, 00:13:44.114 --> 00:13:47.194 which is fantastic. So aesthetics is always important. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:47.194 --> 00:13:51.198 And so is space, the spatial aspect of games. 00:13:51.198 --> 00:13:53.342 You know, I feel that the best video games 00:13:53.342 --> 00:13:56.878 are the ones that have really savvy architects 00:13:56.878 --> 00:13:59.501 that are behind them, and if they're not architects, 00:13:59.501 --> 00:14:02.139 bona fide trained in architecture, they have that feeling. 00:14:02.139 --> 00:14:06.227 But the spatial evolution in video games is extremely important. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:06.227 --> 00:14:09.187 Time. The way we experience time in video games, 00:14:09.187 --> 00:14:11.969 as in other forms of interaction design, 00:14:11.969 --> 00:14:13.228 is really quite amazing. 00:14:13.228 --> 00:14:16.233 It can be real time or it can be the time within the game, 00:14:16.233 --> 00:14:18.449 as is in Animal Crossing, where seasons 00:14:18.449 --> 00:14:21.041 follow each other at their own pace. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:21.041 --> 00:14:24.320 So time, space, aesthetics, 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:26.689 and then, most important, behavior. 00:14:26.689 --> 00:14:30.809 The real core issue of interaction design is behavior. 00:14:30.809 --> 00:14:34.286 Designers that deal with interaction design behaviors 00:14:34.286 --> 00:14:36.601 that go to influence the rest of our lives. 00:14:36.601 --> 00:14:39.136 They're not just limited to our interaction with the screen. 00:14:39.136 --> 00:14:41.185 In this case, I'm showing you Marble Madness, 00:14:41.185 --> 00:14:42.386 which is a beautiful game 00:14:42.386 --> 00:14:45.657 in which the controller is a big sphere that vibrates with you, 00:14:45.657 --> 00:14:48.090 so you have a sphere that's moving in this landscape, 00:14:48.090 --> 00:14:52.622 and the sphere, the controller itself, gives you a sense of the movement. 00:14:52.622 --> 00:14:54.977 In a way, you can see how video games 00:14:54.977 --> 00:14:57.689 are the purest aspect of interaction design 00:14:57.689 --> 00:15:02.308 and are very useful to explain what interaction is. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:02.308 --> 00:15:04.393 We don't want to show the video games 00:15:04.393 --> 00:15:07.335 with the paraphernalia. No arcade nostalgia. 00:15:07.335 --> 00:15:09.017 If anything, we want to show the code, 00:15:09.017 --> 00:15:12.031 and here you see Ben Fry's distellamap of Pac-Man, 00:15:12.031 --> 00:15:13.520 of the Pac-Man code. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:13.520 --> 00:15:17.859 So the way we acquired the games is very interesting 00:15:17.859 --> 00:15:20.055 and very unorthodox. You see them here 00:15:20.055 --> 00:15:24.063 displayed alongside other examples of design, 00:15:24.063 --> 00:15:25.673 furniture and other parts, 00:15:25.673 --> 00:15:28.901 but there's no paraphernalia, no nostalagia, 00:15:28.901 --> 00:15:31.850 only the screen and a little shelf with the controllers. 00:15:31.850 --> 00:15:33.994 The controllers are, of course, part of the experience, 00:15:33.994 --> 00:15:36.443 so you cannot do away with it. 00:15:36.443 --> 00:15:40.941 But interestingly, this choice was not condemned 00:15:40.941 --> 00:15:42.286 too vehemently by gamers. 00:15:42.286 --> 00:15:43.593 I was afraid that they would kill us, 00:15:43.593 --> 00:15:45.659 and instead they understood, especially 00:15:45.659 --> 00:15:48.363 when I told them that I was trying to apply the same stratagem 00:15:48.363 --> 00:15:51.505 that Philip Johnson applied in 1934 00:15:51.505 --> 00:15:53.547 when he wanted to make people understand 00:15:53.547 --> 00:15:55.859 the importance of design, and he took propeller blades 00:15:55.859 --> 00:15:58.139 and pieces of machinery and 00:15:58.139 --> 00:16:01.266 in the MoMA galleries he put them on white pedestals 00:16:01.266 --> 00:16:04.483 against white walls, as if they were Brancusi sculptures. 00:16:04.483 --> 00:16:08.211 He created this strange distance, this shock, 00:16:08.211 --> 00:16:11.869 that made people realize how gorgeous formally, 00:16:11.869 --> 00:16:15.637 and also important functionally, design pieces were. 00:16:15.637 --> 00:16:17.891 I would like to do the same with video games. 00:16:17.891 --> 00:16:20.971 By getting rid of the sticky carpets and the cigarette butts 00:16:20.971 --> 00:16:23.579 and everything else that we might remember from our childhood, 00:16:23.579 --> 00:16:28.150 I want people to understand 00:16:28.150 --> 00:16:30.019 that those are important forms of design. 00:16:30.019 --> 00:16:33.197 And in a way, the video games, the fonts and everything else 00:16:33.197 --> 00:16:35.881 lead us to make people understand 00:16:35.881 --> 00:16:38.223 a wider meaning for design. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:38.223 --> 00:16:40.276 One of my dream acquisitions, 00:16:40.276 --> 00:16:42.191 which has been on hold for a few years 00:16:42.191 --> 00:16:45.193 but now will come back on the front burner, 00:16:45.193 --> 00:16:46.625 is a 747. 00:16:46.625 --> 00:16:49.563 I would like to acquire it, but without owning it. 00:16:49.563 --> 00:16:52.874 I don't want it to be at MoMA and possessed by MoMA. 00:16:52.874 --> 00:16:54.258 I want it to keep flying. 00:16:54.258 --> 00:16:57.798 So it's an acquisition where MoMA makes an arrangement 00:16:57.798 --> 00:17:02.565 with an airline and keeps the Boeing 747 flying. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:02.565 --> 00:17:05.683 And the same with the "@" sign that we acquired a few years ago. 00:17:05.683 --> 00:17:07.865 It was the first example of an acquisition of something 00:17:07.865 --> 00:17:09.270 that is in the public domain. 00:17:09.270 --> 00:17:11.030 And what I say to people, it's almost as if 00:17:11.030 --> 00:17:13.004 a butterfly were flying by 00:17:13.004 --> 00:17:16.153 and we captured the shadow on the wall, 00:17:16.153 --> 00:17:17.610 and just we're showing the shadow. 00:17:17.610 --> 00:17:19.818 So in a way, we're showing a manifestation 00:17:19.818 --> 00:17:22.331 of something that is truly important 00:17:22.331 --> 00:17:25.962 and that is part of our identity but that nobody can have. 00:17:25.962 --> 00:17:27.898 And it's too long to explain the acquisition, 00:17:27.898 --> 00:17:30.404 but if you want to go on the MoMA blog, 00:17:30.404 --> 00:17:32.498 there's a long post where I explain why 00:17:32.498 --> 00:17:34.786 it's such a great example of design. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:34.786 --> 00:17:38.147 Along the way, I've had to burn a few chairs. You know? 00:17:38.147 --> 00:17:42.466 I've had to do away with a few concepts of design past. 00:17:42.466 --> 00:17:45.282 But I see that people are coming along, 00:17:45.282 --> 00:17:47.032 that the audiences, paradoxically, 00:17:47.032 --> 00:17:49.858 are much more responsive and much more understanding 00:17:49.858 --> 00:17:53.916 of this expansion of design than some of my colleagues are. 00:17:53.916 --> 00:17:55.443 Design is truly everywhere, 00:17:55.443 --> 00:17:58.411 and design is as important as anything, 00:17:58.411 --> 00:18:00.871 and I'm so glad that, because of its diversity 00:18:00.871 --> 00:18:03.186 and because of its centrality to our lives, 00:18:03.186 --> 00:18:04.899 many more people are coming to it 00:18:04.914 --> 00:18:07.003 as a profession, as a passion, 00:18:07.003 --> 00:18:09.977 and as, very simply, part of their own culture. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:09.977 --> 00:18:11.120 Thank you very much. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:11.120 --> 00:18:15.215 (Applause)