Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects

Design Noir: The Secret Life of Electronic Objects

By Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (Birkhäuser)

When it comes to designing the next “smart” electronics, is smaller, faster while featuring more apps always better? In Design Noir, Dunne and Raby challenge us to look beyond the slick surface of techno-utopian consumerism and easy pleasure. Through quirky designs, dark humour and do-it-yourself-type mashups, the author/designer duo short-circuits our psyche and pushes the cultural and aesthetic potential of electronic products to shine a critical light on our gadget-mediated existence.

Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science, and the Spiritual

Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science, and the Spiritual

By Lynn Gamwell (Princeton University Press)

From DNA and electrons to Darwin’s natural selection and Einstein’s space-time universe, artists have long been inspired by the wonder and awe in the advancement of science. Beyond the microscopes and telescopes, Gamwell traces the history and evolution of modern art through the prism of our perceptions, scientific (mis)understandings and cultural undercurrents. Sumptuously illustrated, Exploring the Invisible primes to bridge the creative divide between art and science.

The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science

The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science

By Matt Lamothe, Julia Rothman and Jenny Volvovski (Chronicle Books)

Equal parts delightful and illuminating, how did the list of 75 “wondrous mysteries” come about? Can this snappy, whimsical collaboration between artists and scientists spark a new generation of scientific inquiry? In the age of Google where an answer is only a click away, are we losing touch with our inborn curiosity toward the natural world and ourselves? By highlighting the uncertain nature in science, The Where, the Why, and the How not only keeps both the left and right sides of our brain tickled, it winningly prompts us to ask further questions. What a gem!

Originally published on Issue 2 of Art & Science Journal edited by Lee Jones.