Art & the global economy

I had the opportunity of going to MoMA yesterday evening. I was actually there for a lecture on economics! Hmmm... It was an opportunity to reflect upon "America and the New Global Economy" with the guest speaker Lawrence H. Summers. He navigated through the complex financial challenges we currently face. As former United States Secretary of the Treasury and current Harvard professor, he certainly has spent a lot of his life reflecting and predicting economic fluxes and solutions. He sees a window of opportunity ahead in which we will be able to reshape public policy to maintain flexibility and fiscal strength as we practice inclusive prosperity and create systems of government to manage our global economy.Concurrently, it was inspiring to take the opportunity to visit "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibit! This link provides a great opportunity to explore the plethora of exhibits. The flexible thinking that was mentioned in the economic lecture was reflected in the visual explorations that we were immersed in as soon as we walked through the intuitive doors! There is so much to search through, but it is amazing how intuitive our designing is becoming. One of my favorites is sketch furniture. A chair and table are sketched in 3D and then created by computer data and lasers.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zP1em1dg5k&eurl=http://www.frontdesign.se/sketchfurniture/]

Another way of expanding thinking is found in TextArc using visualization and mapping to visually analyze patterns and concepts in texts. try Visuwords yourself! For a simpler version that I have used for a while, try Visual Thesaurus.

These are just two amazing embodiments of the human imagination for your investigation at MoMA.

I find this exhibit to be a stimulating companion to the economic and political lecture summarized above. They both describe the need for the elastic thinking necessary for us to flourish together on a global level.