The curators have not really analyzed fluidity as a consequence of computer processes but simply give it a stylistic label that hardly leads to an understanding of the digital logic driving so many investigations. The computer, for example, is capable of handling great complexity, so why is it that Karim Rashid's injection-molded polypropylene baskets and "Oh" chair in the "Fluid" section are as simple as the contoured fiberglass chairs designed 50 years ago? Conversely, in the "Narrative" section, New York's resident architectural visionary Lebbeus Woods has designed a mazelike installation for an upcoming Berlin exhibition, and its fragmented complexity would appear the result of pushing the "random" button on the computer. But Woods, like Gehry, belongs to the Renaissance tradition: one hand, one desk, one guy, just sitting there using both hemispheres at the same time. Some brains compute without software.
If the computer is invading design big-time, the show remains boxed up in its categories and finally seems unaware of the larger picture implied by its own reportage. A secondary narrative about computers could easily have been woven through, maintaining the overview exhibition but with a double plot. While we read in "Physical" that graphic artist Edward Fella has reacted against the "slick perfection made commonplace" by computers when he uses "battered typefaces and disjunctive layouts," we don't learn that New York architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams only recently bowed to client pressure and allowed computers in their studio.
The show fails to point out interior tensions in the field as designers make their decisions to work with the computer or not. In their display for their Museum of American Folk Art in New York, Tsien and Williams exhibit highly tactile samples of a white bronze to be used on the façade. The architects ladled the metal onto the foundry's rough concrete floor to inflect the surfaces with chaotic imperfections. Tsien and Williams, who purposely explore materiality, still keep the computer at bay. The airlessness of onscreen design often translates to bland surfaces in real buildings.
The jury is still out on the computer's impact on design. There is some very provocative work in "Design Culture Now," but there are no heart-stopping epiphanies. Designers using the computer with intuitive fluency have yet to fulfill the synergistic potential. The Cooper-Hewitt has distinguished itself with landmark shows that grounded works in the larger culture, a critical tradition that is Dianne Pilgrim's legacy. The Triennial could have been the occasion to examine in greater depth the ramifications of digital thinking. The facile themes may give us handles to understand disciplines whose centers no longer hold, but the show pulls back from its own insight by shying away from interpreting this strange attractor now magnetizing all design fields.
Email
Print
Eight Year-End Films Vie for Oscar Contention
Sondheim and Lansbury on a Lifetime in Theater
The Black Keys Release Their Hip-hop Debut 
How the BQE Became an Artistic Muse
On Great Jones Street, Shopping Is Art 
Classic Fare, Old-world Charm at Le Caprice
Buy a Brownstone for Less Than $1 Million
Fifty of the City's Tastiest Soups
Reasons to Love New York 2009
New York Politicians Refuse to Quit
A-Rod Has Babe Ruth in His Sights
McCain Yields to the Party's Pressure
