REVEAL: Gallery Show and an Interview With the Curator
Products of Design is thrilled to mount its first show in the gallery, entitled REVEAL: How Does Design Reveal Truths About the World? On the occasion of its opening, we sat down with first-year student and curator Monica Albornoz to learn more about the exhibition.
Here’s the show description:
This exhibition explores the methodologies in which varying design disciplines—such as sketching, UX, UI, and product design—expand our ways of seeing, interacting, and being. The array of prototypes and graphics displayed here “reveal” new discoveries and explorations in the formal analysis of 3D models, propose tangible solutions to critical problems such as digital mediation through lateral thinking and iteration, and dissect existing products to their most essential components. The work shown here reflects the thought processes of emerging designers who observe the world in all of its complexity and respond with care and deliberation.
Featuring first-year student projects from five different courses, and thesis explorations from second-year students of the MFA Products of Design program.
PoD: Monica, let’s start at the beginning. How did the idea for “Reveal” first come to you as a theme for a show? It’s pretty ambitious.
Monica Albornoz: The idea of “reveal” first came to me during our 3D Product Design class when our instructor Sinclair Smith was talking about how—by cutting an accent off of a volumetric form—the form’s invisible, internal axis would respond. The idea that 3D objects had an axis, like a sort of skeleton, suddenly seemed so obvious to me. After years of study in the visual arts, where the approach to drawing is through what is visible ‘externally,’ I felt like a veil had been lifted before my eyes, and I could suddenly see objects from within.
“I felt like a veil had been lifted before my eyes and I could suddenly see objects from within.”
In the same way that industrial designers deconstruct the physical world into curves, planes, and volumetric forms with axes, I began to see how different approaches to design were offering explicit or implicit knowledge about the world. The first assignment for our Making Studio class, where we learn to make interactive objects with coding and electronics, was to tear down a randomly selected consumer electronic product. Some students got computer mice, one got an Apple TV, another a Bop-It. Tearing down these objects was harder than you’d think; Where are the screws in this thing? Then, when you finally find the screw hidden under a seamlessly camouflaged sticker, where do I find a screwdriver this size? It felt like design was slapping us in the face. As consumers, we take everything for granted—from how products are designed to be human-proof, to the intricate manufacturing of circuit boards, to the power and fragility of a globalized economy. By week three of the program it had dawned on me that design is as much about the doing as it is about the seeing. I wanted to pay homage to that in this show.
PoD: That’s amazing how much you were able to translate this “seeing inside” from literal product design to abstract 3-dimensional design. What were your thoughts around “the revealed” when it comes to interaction design and UX? There are several projects in the show that center on digital design.
MA: Well, I think that UI and UX are more about concealing than revealing. Think about how seamless the coexistence between humans and computers has become—we now essentially carry a computer in our hands and on our wrists all day every day (and this will soon also include our faces, thanks to AR glasses). This comes as a shock to me because the world of tech is the world of code. And the world of code is really not comfortable or easily accessible. Yet we can’t wait to have it all over our bodies? UX and UI have turned the inaccessible (the language of code) into the supremely digestible, perhaps even delectable interface. And the reach of this art of “beautiful concealing” for our leisure, benefit, or sake, has re-written the course of our society, but not always without a cost.
PoD: Interesting, tell us a bit more?
MA: What I mean by that is that digital design does play a role in making our lives better. The fact that apps are easy to use plays a huge role in the democratization of the internet. I think the world is probably better off with apps like Better Help or Headspace. And, even beyond apps, the simple fact that we can pull up our camera in one swipe—in a split-second—has had major repercussions in the past few years. Acts of violence that get documented with our phones can make or break a case in court, for example. They can spark a global reckoning on racism and justice. There is power in interfaces and interaction. But like anything powerful, it also can go very wrong. Just look at Instagram.
“From a teacher’s perspective, however, I think the ideal final show would feature work that is a re-design of the students’ worst work over the past two years...the students would feel empowered and proud of how far they’d come when they saw the ‘before and after’.”
PoD: One last question: You conceived of this show at the very start of your 2-year journey through the MFA program. Just for fun, what would be the name of a “last show” in your imagination...and what would be in that show?
MA: That’s a good one. From the student’s perspective, I think it would be to present the thesis work, or some body of recent work onto which they have poured their hearts and souls. From a marketer’s perspective, the final exhibition might be a shining showcase of “the best work of the past two years.” From a teacher’s perspective, however, I think the ideal final show would feature work that is a re-design of the students’ worst work over the past two years. The students would be rolling their eyes upon being told this. They’d wonder why they couldn’t just exhibit their beautiful and meaningful thesis work. But wouldn’t it be humbling to see where we came from? And wouldn’t it be a test to the promise of design, and of the student’s masterful new toolkits, to have to take something forgotten and muster the confidence and point of view to redesign it? I honestly think the students might have fun, feel empowered, and be proud of how far they’d come when they saw the before and after. Oh, and that would be the name of the exhibition. “Before and After.”