Aug 19, 2014 #imprintpresents John Maeda and Friends Recap
After being introduced by Imprint Culture Lab’s Julia Huang at last week’s #imprintpresents event, John Maeda said that he wanted to make sure his presentation wouldn’t simply echo one of his TED talks, conference keynote speeches, or anything that one can easily stream online. He added that he has been giving a lot of speeches since leaving academia for venture capital, and was ready to talk about something other than design, start-ups, and leadership.
In tune with the medium-sized venue filled mostly with friends or friends of friends, the former president of RISD gave a more personal talk that that he jokingly compared to therapy. Before describing his childhood, he respectfully pointed out similarities between the “cutting-edge” design of Apple computers with coffeemakers and trashcans. Likewise, he has stumbled upon bathrooms with unintentional artistry that rivals high-end galleries without the pretense or price points. Art and design are everywhere, he noted.
Continuing to mash up design and utility, art and science, and high culture and low culture, Maeda began describing his youth growing up in a family tofu shop steeped in Asian American culture. He noted that the Japanese movies and TV shows that he watched–from the Toro-san melodramas to the Lone Wolf and Cub chanbara series to Gundam anime–were popular culture but not necessarily simplistic. The protagonists had good and bad traits, juggled tradition and technology, and balanced humanity and machines. The shows served to entertain Maeda when he was a kid, but they also helped to inform his adult understanding of the world as more than either/or. One needn’t choose a side and can–and should–choose both.
For the second portion of the talk, which pertained to art, science, and the future, Maeda invited friends from the start-up community: Jackie Xu (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Sash Catanzarite (Tradesy), John Underkoffler (Oblong Industries), Ivan Bercovich (FindTheBest). Rather than address the group as a panel, he first interviewed Xu, who then interviewed Catanzarite, and so on. It was like an Exquisite Corpse in conversation form. The program’s spontaneity was refreshing yet dangerous; it could have easily bombed.
But Maeda chose his guests carefully and he chose them well. The questions, answers, and chemistry ran at a high level throughout the program. The recurring theme was the relationship between design and technology, but creativity, responsibility, and the development process came up in conversations as well. The panelists’ differing outlooks made for interesting overlaps and contrasts, from the venture capital perspective of Xu to the start-up mentalities of Catanzarite and Bercovich. Underkoffler, whose background is science, told a great story about showing the futuristic UI to Tom Cruise and other crew members on the set of Minority Report. A case of the future imitating art anticipating the future…
Questions were directed toward Maeda, too. He shared an anecdote about being approached by a police officer while helping kids move out student housing at RISD. The cop wondered why he didn’t have to bust parties at the renowned art school like he did at Brown or Providence. The fact is that art students have to work really hard, and apply themselves just as hard as engineering or science majors. Yet another instance of the gap between art and science not being quite as wide as commonly perceived.
Follow John Maeda at twitter.com/johnmaeda. And check in on Imprint Culture Lab via Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more articles, events, and announcements.