1. Intro:
I am Maya. It’s very difficult for me to define myself. I see myself as a multifaceted person. I was born in Georgia. I was raised in a traditional family— Jewish family with strong religious roots. Since I was very very young, I didn’t feel like I belonged to that specific set that was built for me and I was lucky enough to be able to define my own path. Today I am who I am because of that and because of my family that allowed me to become this multifaceted person.
I am a researcher in interdisciplinary sciences and explorations. I research now creativity in the process of creativity taking it into the (year) 2020 and moving forward, especially when we consider the new technologies and artificial intelligence and what will make us different from the machines.
My definition of extreme is basically existing outside predefined boundaries. It applies to any field of endeavor or person's life…. I think that I live in the extreme. Knowing where I come from and even interactive on a daily basis with my family today with my mother for her I am extreme. She doesn't understand it because for her there are pre-defined boundaries that I don’t even recognize.
When we look at the extreme in the world we can also recognize it through the same formula. and in the exhibition that we will discuss, I think it becomes clear at least for me which are true extreme, and which works are an intentional play with the term extreme.
2. (072) The Coolest White:
When entering the museum, the work that you first see is this white and black structures that you don't really understand except that it's black and white and it's quite appealing to the eye. When you enter inside you see the screen and you see this heat generated by the different parts perhaps of the building but you still don't really comprehend what you see— it took a while to understand the message that this work is conveying in its simplicity in black and white. This new color/this new paint that was developed by monochrome colors represents something very very special not only from the perspective of urban design or architecture, I think that what it represents the way it's shown in the museum is that each one of us can appreciate the difference that we make on the climate and environment. The fact that we can see that there is a huge difference between the use of the new paint versus the old-style black or any other type of paint that might be used and how much energy the buildings absorb and then emit into the environment. The simplicity in which it’s done for the viewer I think that this work presents a very strong message to the visitors/to the museum as a whole.
3. (002) Finding Her
I found it a little bit funny at first because it was sort of Find Waldo type of work. In the end while you were looking for this female character inside the posters, it became more and more aggravating and at the end very emotional because it's very difficult to find that woman. As a woman myself, I was challenging myself to think about how will she be represented so I know the image to look for. When I found this woman she was represented in this old characteristic way of how we represent women, how you would imagine let's say an office assistant in the 50s or in the 60s dressed in the classic skirt and buttoned shirt with her hair cut short. It was quite interesting to see that this is how a female character was represented in the poster which was also supposed to say something about the percentage of women in the workforce in Egypt.
What was also interesting to me was the fact that the work was not produced by an Egyptian artist or designer. It was produced from what I understand is a Japanese team, so all in all this work resonated quite strongly because I think that we're in no more different position than we used to be, or from the position which is seen in Egypt today. We can see it at the higher levels of the society where CEOs, the board of directors, senior-level and even VP levels are all populated by males- fewer women.
Even though we're working for a change I think that this work makes it very clear what we want to avoid from happening and what is the heritage that we want to leave for the next generations to see because I don't think that I would want two generations for me now looking back at this age and seeing so little women in their positions and I think that we have the power today to change it and this work brings it to a discussion that we're having now and I think it's quite fascinating to put it in the Polarization section of the whole exhibit.
4. (074) xCoral
The ideal of this to basically help the nature restore itself and the statement by this project is that using natural material like a terracotta clay would help in doing so not simply by its structure, that it will it reinforce the growth of the corals, but by the fact that after this already happens the terracotta clay will go back to nature without leaving a trace. But for me, there was an issue with the work in the sense that it's also intervention into nature by two factors: 1. with helping the coral reef to grow, which is why the product was developed or the project was established but the second problem or the second factor that I noted was that it was decided that we're interfering into nature by representing or presenting into oceans material that is not natural to them. It wouldn't have been too much to discuss if there wasn't another work in the exhibit, the Algae Lab on the first floor which discusses the use of algae as an alternative to plastics. When I saw the second work of Algae Lab the immediate connection that was made by me was, why not use algae to create materials to create those reinforcing structures for the corals to grow on, rather than introducing a foreign material to the ocean?
I think it poses an interesting question of what choices do designers have when they make the design or the solution to a problem— and also I think another question that is raised, what could be of value of a communication with other disciplines, with other projects, with other research projects around the world to see how one can be employed for the other to solve a common problem?
So for me the two works are interconnected to some extent and show how we want still to use natural materials algae and a terracotta clay but how much difference would it make in the placing one in the environment of the other.
5. (019) Crowbot Jenny
So another work that I found quite interesting was Sputniko from 2011. I mention the year here because I think that’s it’s interesting to know that today there's already work being done on the what is presented in this art/ or video art already today we're trying to understand the language to communicate with other creatures be it animals or be it plants and I think that this work was futuristic for its fine but in the very short of time we managed to bridge the gap between what is considered to be as a fantasy of an artist to what is becoming a reality for our society.
6. (022 )Compression cradle
It's visually very appealing and very challenging conceptually to understand what is this needed for and I think in particular in showing it in Israel where the culture is so warm, and people are so warm it's almost incomprehensible that there could be people that want some sort of compression cradle to give them warmth. But beyond that point which is more of a local point, I think that the work has a very strong statement about it and it makes a difference between being alone and being lonely….If you notice the work has that a handle that is supposed to be rotated by someone external to the cradle to create this compression function of the machine of the cradle. This implies that there are two people involved in the act and this raises a very important question of why do you actually need a cradle when you have another person around you rotating this handle? And this question about being lonely or feeling like you’re not hugged or you’re missing something which is to be abridged by machine is a fascinating question I think. It represents something than just the feeling of warmth of a hug. It represents for me how we live in a society today where we’re surrounded by people all around us and yet would feel extremely lonely most of the time. While this is a representation of the mechanical device I think that the digital devices that we hang around with or focus on or wear are actually the same representation as this cradle machine.
7. (032) Sky blue
Looking at this work first you see the appeal of the aesthetic appeal of the design and initially you wonder why you have so many colors or gradients of color and what it represents and they all look the same but they're not the same….. and when you realize what this work is about and that initial design of the vase was a plant or created to imitate nature, I think that the strength of the work comes from showing that nature is changing and we as artists pick up on this change and represent it differently. So what used to be considered as a color of the sky 200 years ago today it's not the same color and it's also about subjectivity of how we use linguistics and how we choose words to describe something so sky blue is no longer is the same as it used to be and I think that this work is very smart in showing us how this can change over time.
8. (025) Bleached Coral
The bleached coral collection represents something very fascinating about the world of design, in general, and our society today. Pantone being considered as one of the companies that create color standards. And here as they adopt a new color which is bleached color, unlike the opposite which is already part of the Pantone collection, the coral. What is fascinating is how the industry is adjusting to the changes in the environment and adopting this change as part of a design world or our daily lives because this color will then become a color of t-shirt as we see in the collection, mugs, etc but it will also be walls color than this and next time you would want this specific white you will refer to as a ‘bleached corals’
I think it's at the first reminder of that there was a coral at some point behind this and that we lost it... and now a new color came to be because of our own actions so in a sense we're all creators of this colors that will be owned by the Pantone company giving you this name and owning this color so it's sort of a circular, it's making something positive out of negative but for me, the negative stay stronger than the positive that is intended to be created. At the end, it's bleached coral and it's not bleached by choice it's bleached by our actions so I think that it's a very strong work that shows the extreme that can we can create in the natural world and how we own this extreme situation to our own benefit and I think that to some extent being may be very critical, it shows our selfishness and perhaps this is not what the creators wanted to express but for me, while I find this color very appealing, I think it’s extremely selfish that we would have a color called bleached Coral think about it says a lot about us as a society.
9. (027) Bio City World Map
I was interested by the Bio City world map, it drew my attention obviously because of the color and the scale of the work but I think that what I found fascinating is a collaboration between different disciplines to create this work as it relates to design,s of course, cartography in some sense, urban planning architectures, 3D parametric graphics, and it raises its awareness on the urgency that is being posed by overpopulation and the fact that the designer or the choice the interdisciplinary work to represent this urgency says a lot about also how we will be able if at all to resolve the future of overpopulation other than... let's say moving to Mars or other planets that which we might discover. But 11 billion people living on the same planet will inevitably require interdisciplinarity to solve the problems that will be posed by such overpopulation. As individuals, we often see ourselves either in silo or in small communities or let's say even on the neighborhood level, city level, country-level but considering that we will be citizens of the world that will be populated by 11 billion people the scale of problem that will come about and it's already in existence is solvable only by interdisciplinarity of work mutual work towards a common goal of solving this crisis and I think that this work is a beautiful attempt to show how this interdisciplinarity actually expresses the problem and hoping that it will be picked up... and it's already being picked up by some of the governments and the United Nations and other governmental agencies to solve the problem. So for me, it resonates very strongly due to my interests in interdisciplinarity and also the role design place in translating this urgency, this problem into something that we as simple people can understand and comprehend this problematic nature.
10. (046) Today’s success is tomorrows disaster
When I looked at this work at first it was a little bit confusing because I couldn't figure out what is a game doing in the design museum talking about the extremes. But the closer I looked at it I started to understand what it's about and I imagine myself playing it was with other people, especially younger people, and I think it's a great statement about how experiencing is not the same as learning or hearing from the outside. So I think that this work shows that subjective experience provides you with a better understanding of the situation and can lead you perhaps to change your mind or view the problem in a different manner. At least for me this work of today's success is tomorrow's disaster exemplifies the specific problems that the game is reflecting on very very strongly.
11. Bio City World Map
I was interested by the Bio City world map, it drew my attention obviously because of the color and the scale of the work but I think that what I found fascinating is a collaboration between different disciplines to create this work as it relates to design, of course, cartography in some sense, urban planning architectures, 3D parametric graphics, and it raises its awareness on the urgency that is being posed by overpopulation and the fact that the designer or the choice the interdisciplinary work to represent this urgency says a lot about also how we will be able if at all to resolve the future of overpopulation other than... let's say moving to Mars or other planets that which we might discover. But 11 billion people living on the same planet will inevitably require interdisciplinarity to solve the problems that will be posed by such overpopulation. As individuals, we often see ourselves either in silo or in small communities or let's say even on the neighborhood level, city level, country-level but considering that we will be citizens of the world that will be populated by 11 billion people the scale of problem that will come about and it's already in existence is solvable only by interdisciplinarity of work mutual work towards a common goal of solving this crisis and I think that this work is a beautiful attempt to show how this interdisciplinarity actually expresses the problem and hoping that it will be picked up... and it's already being picked up by some of the governments and the United Nations and other governmental agencies to solve the problem. So for me, it resonates very strongly due to my interests in interdisciplinarity and also the role design place in translating this urgency, this problem into something that we as simple people can understand and comprehend this problematic nature.
11. Conclusion
So I did my own little experiment when I went to see the exhibition. I joined a guided group… and I joined it for two reasons: 1. To see what the guide will be telling us. But the second one was more of a cultural experience for me. I wanted to see what the people in my group were thinking and asking because it was important for me to understand how people view the exhibition as viewers that are not maybe so verse in the world of design or worldly affairs. They were basically neighbors living in the neighborhood of the museum... Most of them above age 70 which was quite interesting to see their perspective. I liked the exhibition in the sense that it echoed several other exhibitions I’ve seen in the past year. I think the idea of having it locally in Israel, bringing people to see things that are not as natural for them to see in their daily life- not being art but actually design says a lot.
For me personally the Zen Garden or the series Zen Master was quite a strong exhibit to experience. As a Buddhist practitioner, I try to meditate, but I don't have a zen garden per se. I often use this meditation app Headspace to help me center for a few minutes because I’m a very energized person most of the time and there was something about this theory Zen Master garden that captivated me. First I heard just the noise, the voiceover of the app– this exhibit and I couldn't understand where I need to go. It was unclear clear to me— but the sentences that were stated by this... whoever I realized it's was a digital voice so I was fascinated by what was being said and I realized its meditation and then I saw, of course, the plaque (description) and I entered the room and immediately it grasped my attention.
I tried to figure out what's going on and I stayed there for quite a long time. I left the group that I was with and stayed in. I tried to understand would I be able to meditate if I had such a garden at my place or if I had a location where I could go and I would have something like that that it was interesting for me to see how futuristic it is. Because why? I asked myself why would I even want this? Other than for its natural ‘natural’ put in quotation mark but its natural beauty no one really needs this to meditate but something about it- the fact that its fake nature— and our desire to get closer to nature but having no ability living in a city to be that close to a nature you need to bring in some stones, some lighting to create this environment... so it raises a lot of questions about where we're going as a society and how far away we’re stepping from nature.