The Five Weirdest Pieces from MoMA’s New Tech Exhibit

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A website that maps crowd-sourced data in a disaster. A digital character that giggles when you poke his belly. And a device that allows men to menstruate.

Those are just a few of the items that will go on display at Talk To Me, the Museum of Modern Art’s latest tech-focused show in New York City this Sunday. Featuring roughly 200 objects from artists and designers all over the world (all of them laden with individual QR codes), the exhibit is all about communication — of the sort that occurs among humans, but also the types that take place between man and machine.

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“We’ve become really communicative animals,” says Paola Antonelli, the MoMA curator behind the show. “Social networks are a symptom of that. This is something that designers can take into account when designing a new object or an interface design technology.” The exhibit, therefore, includes a wide gamut of interactive tech, from a wall-sized installation of Talking Carl, the totally adorbz, touch-sensitive smartphone character, to Ushahidi, a website that aggregates and maps crowd-sourced data in a crisis. The latter has been used to pinpoint danger zones in the aftermath of violent elections in Kenya and the earthquake in Haiti.

The show also features a number of totally bizarro pieces — such as the menstruation machine mentioned above. Antonelli gives us a preview of some of the exhibit’s freakier objects.

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THE AVATAR MACHINE

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This is the ultimate in gamer fetish pieces: a bodysuit that lets the user morph into a full-fledged video game avatar in real life. Designed by British artist Marc Owens, Avatar Machine is a muscle-suit that bears a passing resemblance to Cloud Strife, the poker-faced, spike-haired hero from Final Fantasy VII. Extending from the rear of the suit is a camera, which feeds into a pair of virtual reality glasses in the headpiece. This allows the wearer to see himself from behind as he moves around in real time — in the same way a gamer might see his third-person avatar on screen.

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The visual trickery has a transformative effect on behavior, says MoMA curator Paola Antonelli. “When people wear the suit, they start making exaggerated movements,” she says. “They start acting like avatars.”

They also look seriously badass (see the above video).

Owens’ pieces are one-offs, so you won’t find them at a mall near you any time soon. But if someone could figure out how to rig one of these puppies to a Kinect — two words: gold mine.

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DEVICE FOR MINDLESS COMMUNICATION

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So what do you do? How do you know the groom? How long have you been collecting Cult Classics action figures?

Dinner party chatter can be relentlessly soul sucking — which is exactly where Spanish artist Gerard Ralló’s device comes in. This particular unit (part of a series) is designed to sit around the neck and broadcast mindless banter so that you don’t have to. The machine can’t decipher your conversation partner’s exact words or phrases, but once it tracks the back-and-forth pattern of chit-chat it jumps in with answers to mundane queries — all of it based, says Antonelli, on “an algorithm of banalities.”

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The above video by Ralló imagines the piece at work.

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CALL ME, CHOKE ME

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This S&M-inspired work gives new meaning to sexting. Designed by German artist Gunnar Green, Call Me, Choke Me consists of a leather neck collar that tightens ever so slightly every time the wearer receives a phone call or a text message on their cell phone. The result: erotic asphyxiation in which you can employ telemarketing calls and your boss’s text messages to get off. “It’s very kinky,” chuckles Antonelli. “To me its even better when the other person — the caller — knows that it’s happening.”

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Thankfully, there is a safety: Pull on a loop and the collar releases before all those ESPN alerts do you in.

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E. CHROMI

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Out of all the objects in MoMA’s Talk to Me exhibit, this one wins the prize for gross-out: an engineered bacteria that, when consumed (say, in a yogurt drink), changes the color of a patient’s waste depending on the type of disease they might have. A case of salmonella might generate purple poops; colitis might result in something lemon yellow. Worms bring out the indigo. All of it reminds me of the time my dog ate my sister’s Crayolas.

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Designed by James King and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, in collaboration with a team of scientists at the University of Cambridge in England, E. chromi, as the project is called, is intended to help doctors determine a patient’s internal condition without having to do so much poking and scraping. “It’s in an experimental phase,” says Antonelli. “But it definitely works.”

None of this means that there is actual feces on display in the museum (not that this hasn’t been done before). MoMA, instead, is making do with a striking display case full of colorful wax turds.

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THE MENSTRUATION MACHINE

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It’s the work of art that every woman dreams about: a Barbarella-style metal belt that allows non-menstruators — a.k.a. dudes — know what it feels like to bleed. Devised by Sputniko!, a British-Japanese artist obsessed with issues of identity and biology, the belt comes equipped with electrodes to stimulate real-live cramping and an empty chamber that can be filled with the user’s blood. It was created with the help of a medical professor at London’s Imperial College and is designed to mimic the effects of a five-day period. This music video imagines the belt in use.

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“It’s a compelling and moving symbol about really trying to understand other people,” says Antonelli, the show’s curator. It’s also a great way for the Y chromosome to know what feels like to have the fanged menstruation beast inside their bellies. Now, if only someone could help the fellas simulate childbirth…

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