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The MoMa is an emulsion of Art and Design. Two Separate but integrally intertwined disciplines. The Museum of Modern Art serves as a body to unite but separately display these worlds. It is by far one of my favorite Museums. It is one of the places I can go to visit some of my favorite post-impressionists paintings, and be enlightened to the new innovations in the world of Design all in the same wonderful afternoon. It gratifies the romantic, searching artist, as well as the crafty, clever nerd inside me. How could you not love the MoMa?

Design for the Elastic Mind was an exhibit put on earlier this spring that featured artists and designers that were discovering the latest innovations in time, space, matter, and individuality. A featured artist, Geoffrey Mann, displays something called “motion engendering form” in his installation “Attracted To Light” where he takes the course of movement of a moth and captures this ephemeral thing into something solid. He records the movement of the animal with a 3D scanner, then extrudes the shape with a rapid prototyping machine. The resulting piece is whimsical, ribbon-like form. Stationary, it still dances with movement.

Sometimes I see the idea of an Artist and Designer being the two opposite poles of a spectrum, a person’s creativity and identity being placed on any point on that line, being closer to either the Art or Design, but always being a part of both. However, I also can see how a person can be a Designer superimposed onto an Artist, or vice-versa, like two veneers, one a little more transparent for the other to show through.

In Mann’s case, I do not know which he considers himself, if at all, but I see how he utilizes the tools of an Industrial Designer (rapid prototyping, a process we have become familiar with in our Manufacturing Techniques class) in order to create something that can be perceived as a fine art. I was not fortunate enough to see “Attracted to Light” in real life, but judging from the pictures, I assume it would invoke the same passionately moving effect as a Rodin sculpture. The form has a very gestural flow. Encased in white, it has a very light, flighty feel, frolicking in the air surrounding. It is not surprising this is the flight path of a moth’s interaction with light. But it is not only about refracting art from the literal, Mann exhibits a sensitive understanding of design, of science, and of beauty with his pieces. Part of his Long Exposure series, he also studies the motions of a bird, with twisting, satiny shapes made of porcelain and glass. He fuses delicate into solid, holds movement captive and inspires imagination from fact.

So where is the line between Art & Design? Maybe it’s in the way the viewer sees it, just as someone who visually likes abstract art, without understanding the meaning behind it, or taking the beauty of mathematical tessellations at face value. Maybe it is not a line at all but a telescope to focus in what we wish to see, or a kaleidoscope of sorts. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then perhaps Art & Design are in these eyes as well.