News

Japanese "Device Art" exhibition captures playful interactions with hardware

If you had a chance to check MoMA’s last design exhibition Talk to Me, you might have noticed several devices such as Sputniko!’s Menstruation Machine which mimics the pain of, well, menstruation. Or Kate Hartman’s Talk to Yourself Hat which transmits sounds from one’s mouth directly into one’s ears via a conspicuous, trunk-like tube. Technology can be gloriously strange. The new “Device Art” exhibition that kicks off at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria, captures playfully creative design, but from their encounter with ancient Japanese traditions. The Device Art movement emerged ten years ago. Hiroo Iwata, a professor at…