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18/11/2005

John Maeda

Fondation Cartier, Paris

When it comes to designing by numbers, John Maeda is peerless. He is passionate about exploring new computer technologies and applying them to graphic design, art installations and teaching. His brilliant fusion of art and science is focused on bringing vitality and depth to our relationship with computers. On view from November 19, 2005 to February 19, 2006, this major exhibition of his work at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will be the first of such scope to take place in Europe. For the occasion, John Maeda has created a series of original pieces, paving the way to a new era: the “Post-digital.”

A “HUMANIST TECHNOLOGIST”
Renowned for the poetry and minimalism of his digital designs, John Maeda was one of the first to explore the visual and artistic potential of the computer. Over the past twenty years, he has defined a new approach to computers, suffused with humor and sensitivity. In his work as both an artist and professor at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), he has promoted the development of a “humanist” technology—one that is both easier to use and more closely connected to our body and our senses. He has coined the term “less-tech”—an original alternative to high-tech and low-tech—to define this attempt to break away from the intimidating complexity of today’s software. One of the artist’s first digitally created designs, The Reactive Square, clearly expresses this commitment to simplicity; the program involves a basic black square that dances and morphs in response to the sound of the human voice. Transcending the boundaries between art and computer science, John Maeda uses codewriting similar to the way a painter uses brushstrokes, exploring the subtlety of form, color and pattern to create works that are both profound and visually stunning.

NATURE
For his show at the Fondation Cartier, John Maeda has designed seven “digital landscapes.” Culling his metaphors from nature—trees, sky, grass, moon, fire, wind, rain, snow—he offers a glimpse of digital space in the spirit of landscape painting. These digital landscapes, projected onto large screens, are generated by a new software technology that the artist created in order to “paint in space and time.” Resulting from an interplay of gestures and other inputs to the computer in the dynamic spirit of Abstract Expressionism, these landscapes poetically depict natural phenomena in an attempt to bring us closer to the “nature within the computer.” Providing us with new insight into the as-yet-unseen world of computation, they represent a signal of what Maeda has described as the Post-digital era.

EYE’M HUNGRY
For John Maeda, art must satisfy not only the palate of a sophisticated adult, but also the enquiring mind of a child. Inspired by his four children, John Maeda has regularly designed new programs involving games and voice recognition to facilitate their access to the computer. His pioneering “reactive forms” were created so that his children could relate to the computer by speaking or singing rather than by clicking on the mouse or typing on the keyboard. For his exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, John Maeda has devised a special room for children including a series of six works displayed on interactive computer stations. In this installation, playfully entitled Eye’m Hungry, John Maeda continues his reactive work of 1993 as well as the work he began in 2003 for his New York solo exhibition F00d. Extending this theme of food with dynamic whimsy and humor, Eye’m Hungry provides opportunities for interactive abstraction; visitors may create cascades of form and color as they play with imagery as banal as fruit, French fries or broccoli.
In his new series of works, John Maeda strives to bring simplicity to the complex, using the computer as a medium to reveal the essential beauty of the digital landscape. With sensitivity, wit and intelligence, he succeeds in bringing out the human dimension of technology.

Born in Seattle in 1966 to a family of Japanese immigrants, John Maeda studied math and computer science at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), planning to become an engineer according to his father’s wishes. During his studies, he happened upon Paul Rand’s Thoughts on Design, a book that inspired him to become a graphic designer.
Following his studies at MIT, he left for Japan’s Tsukuba University to study in its renowned Classic Arts program where he earned a PhD. He was invited back to MIT in 1996 at the age of 28 as a faculty member at the Media Laboratory, and is currently working there as Allen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and as Director of the Physical Language Workshop.
Listed by Esquire Magazine in 2001 as one of the 21 geniuses of the 21st century, John Maeda has won numerous awards, including the Mainichi Design Prize in Japan, the New York Art Directors Gold Prize and the Smithsonian National Design Award. In 2003, he received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. He is also the recipient in Germany of the Lucky Strike Designer Award (November 2005) from the Raymond Loewy Foundation.
Currently, Maeda is working on his MBA while continuing his professorial duties at MIT.

Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, under the aegis of the Fondation de France, and with the sponsorship of Cartier.

Catalogue John Maeda. Hardback, bilingual French-English, 112 pages, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris/Actes Sud, Arles
22 x 28 cm, 80 color illustrations approx.
Text: Peter Weibel
Publication: November 18, 2005. Price: 30€

Linda Chenit assisted by Hélène Cahuzac
Tel +33 (0)1 421856 77/65 Fax +33 (0)1 42185652 linda.chenit@fondation.cartier.com

Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
261, boulevard Raspail 75014 Paris

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