Arts Beat | Art That Begs to Be Touched

"A visitor interacts with the MetroCard Vending Machine, made by Cubic Transportation Systems and designed by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design, and David Reinfurt, Kathleen Holman, and the MTA New York City Transit." Photographer: Caleb Ferguson

From: The New York Times
Author: Randy Kennedy
Published: July 26, 2011

Most mornings, the Museum of Modern Art is as crowded as a Midtown subway station. So it didn’t seem all that odd to witness two middle-school students, Ariel Rogiers, 13 and Javonna Cato, 12, from the Robert F. Kennedy School on the Upper East Side, lining up recently on the museum’s third floor to check the balances on their MetroCards.

A MetroCard machine is now parked on the museum’s third floor, in all its graffiti-proof, scratch-proof, tank-like steel solidity, fully functioning and ready to accept cash, credit card or ATM card. It’s part of the museum’s new “Talk to Me” design exhibition, which looks at how products and devices are growing increasingly sophisticated at communicating with users.

But some visitors who encounter it don’t seem to know quite what to make of a piece of subway infrastructure transplanted into art land. They stop, as if standing in front of a neo-Surrealist sculpture, wondering if the machine is supposed to be touched, in an exhibition where some things are and many things are not. But the screen in the middle of this machine announces invitingly, just as it does underground, to “Touch Start,” showing the familiar floating digitized hand, its big index finger extended. (One of the machine’s designers, Sigi Moeslinger, purposely made this finger abnormally big to make it exceedingly clear to users how to proceed.)

Teenagers seem to be the first to understand that the exhibit is a real machine and should, of course, really be used. “I didn’t believe them, that it would work,” said Melissa White, a teacher from the Robert F. Kennedy School, who had taken a class to the exhibition. “My first instinct was run over and keep them from touching it.”

Susanna Petrin, a freelance journalist from Basel, Switzerland, had no such inhibitions. She struggled a bit with her debit card but eventually managed to purchase a $10 fare card for her collection. (The specially printed souvenir cards come with the name of the exhibition printed on the back.) “I already have two MetroCards but I keep losing them,” she said. “It’s good to have one in every bag and purse, no?”

Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design, David Reinfurt, Kathleen Holman, and MTA/New York City Transit. MetroCard Vending Machine. 1999.