The Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt design museum in New York City is to host an exhibition of pieces from its archives curated by legendary visual effects wizard Bob Greenberg.
The show will run from February 23-September 9 in the Nancy and Edwin Marks Collection Gallery.
Greenberg is the CEO of R/GA, one of the earliest production houses to combine design and video production.
The show is the latest in Cooper Hewitt’s Selects series, which sees top figures from the world of design responding to the museum’s permanent collection.
Greenberg has chosen pieces that relate to the brief of creativity in technology.
Among his chosen pieces is Braun’s iconic ET55 calculator (1980), the Edison Voicewriter Dictaphone (1953) and Henry Dreyfuss’ Model 500 telephone (1953).
Caroline Baumann, director of Cooper Hewitt, comments: “A 2003 National Design Award winner for Communication, Bob is a true original—revered in his field as an iconoclastic thinker with a prescient understanding of the creative and strategic possibilities of interactive design.
“An enthusiastic collector of industrial design, Bob plunged into Cooper Hewitt’s important holdings of wired and wireless tools and pulled forth a fascinating visual narrative of technology’s seismic impact on design. And as per Bob’s way, the installation will be an immersive, interactive experience involving animation, audio and video.”
That interaction involves an app developed by R/GA that encourages visitors to scan each of the exhibits to learn more.
