Design, meet science. Science, meet some innovative artists. That's the idea behind Design and the Elastic Mind, an exhibition currently on show at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) until May 12. As I stepped off the sixth floor escalator, I was greeted by the show's introductory text, elegantly printed atop a pattern of pink, purple and grey lines, reminiscent of the striped dress shirts worn by many of the hip Manhattan museum goers. But when I looked beyond the big block letters, and stared closely at the wallpaper, I saw a swarm of tiny A's, C's, T's, and G's. These letters, 76 million in all, collectively spell out the entire genetic code of human chromosome 18, with exons in purple, introns in pink, and grey for all the spaces between the genes. This piece -- called Genomic Cartography by Ben Fry of the MIT Media...
human brain evolvedDesign
DNA Origami
(Image courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art)
Paul Rothemund'sDNA Origami
The Honey Comb Vase "Made by Bees"
Tomas Libertiny'sThe Honey Comb Vase "Made by Bees,"Protein Homology GraphEdward MarcotteSusanna Soares'Sniffing Others
The Pig Wings Project
The Tissue Culture and Art Projectin vitroVictimless LeatherThe Pig Wings Projectdesignmail@the-scientist.com"Design and the Elastic Mind" is on view through May 12 at the Museum of Modern Art: 11 West 53 Street (between Fifth and Sixth Avenues) in New York, (212) 708-9400, www.moma.org.

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