Lot 18: ARANDA\LASCH

BENJAMIN ARANDA AND CHRIS LASCH
“Rules of Six” wall relief
Produced by Situ Studio, USA (2008). Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art for “Design and the Elastic Mind.”

144 x 169 x 8 1/2 in. (365.8 x 429.3 x 21.6 cm.)

High-density foam.

2007

Museum of Modern Art, “Design and the Elastic Mind,” February 24-May 12, 2008; Design Miami, 2008, Johnson Trading Gallery

Nicolai Ourossoff, “The Soul In The New Machines,” New York Times, February 22, 2008, Weekend Arts section, illustrated pp. 29-30

Private Collection, New York

Design and the Elastic Mind was an exhibition concept borne out of monthly meetings organized by The Museum of Modern Art and the scientific publication “Seed” intended to engage designers and scientists in a dialogue addressing their relationship to each other and their role in contemporary culture. The exhibition itself sought to explore the role of designers as interpreters of scientific and technological developments, and to highlight successful examples of designs which translate the disruptive nature of scientific and technological advances.
 
Among the designers chosen for these monthly discussions, and ultimately, for the exhibition itself, were Benjamin Aranda and Chris Lasch of the design and architecture firm Aranda\Lasch. A natural match for this dialogue, the duo’s designs frequently experiment with space and structure in terms of science and mathematics. Fractals, nanostructures, polyhedra and other naturally-occurring geometries are common underlying themes of their work. Rules of Six, a work described as an exploration of the molecular processes of self-assembly and modularity, takes its cue directly from the “rule of six” in science, which is an algorithm based on the symmetry of the six-sided snowflake which self-assembles in such a way that “no two are alike.” To create Rules of Six, Aranda and Lasch used an algorithm to mimic this natural process of nanostructural growth so that the forms interlock into a landscape of hexagons of varying scales which, though different, maintain structural integrity.
 "Rules of Six explores the fundamental rules by which material assembles itself across scales, from the molecule to the city. To design in this way, indifferently to scale and privileging the relationships between things that drive their growth, is to suggest the real opportunity for design is to engage with information itself." --Chris Lasch