 So my name is Andrea Lips. I'm an associate curator of contemporary design here at the museum, and I'm honored to moderate this discussion with Derek Lam, who is the winner of our Fashion Design Award, and Yvonne Puparev, who is the winner of our Interaction Design Award. So this is going to be fun, inspiring, and very fast. We have 20 minutes, which will do it. I mean, my god, there's hardly time to fit any conversation in. So we are going to get started. Um, I wanted to focus on design and the body and thinking about both of your work. And specifically starting with you, Derek, of course, your work envelopes and engages the body very much. So tell us more about how you consider the body in your work. Are you seeking to reshape the body through the clothes that you make? And how do you consider other bodily sensations, if at all, with what you do? I think I have a preoccupation with making sure that a woman feels in touch with her body when she's wearing my clothes. So does she feel relaxed? Can she express herself through her body language and not be impeded by the clothing that I make? So a lot of times, considering specific areas that I concentrate on, for example, the shoulder is very important for me in terms of construction clothing so that she moves naturally. The hip area is really important to me so that she feels, again, she can express herself without speaking, so to speak, through the clothes. So hello. That's actually really interesting, because I feel like some of that even segs Ivan into what you and I were talking about even earlier in the trustee's room, because we were talking a lot about just self-expression and how so often we're able to talk without even saying words, that what is it, 93% of conversation, if you will, in communication is non-verbal. Right, in certain situations. Yeah, so it's interesting to even think about how just our clothing itself can really impact how the world sees us and how we're able to interact with the world. Yeah, I think especially if you're walking into a room, that first impact is understanding is she or he, both, able to express themselves without, like I said, without speaking, and people identify it, yeah. And to what extent are you, do you think about then the materials as well, the tactility or sometimes even, I have some pieces that make a sound, if there's kind of like a kind of a kind of rushing or something, do you ever consider any of that when you're making your pieces? Absolutely, I think all senses are kind of activated when you're wearing clothing and I do consider it. I find it really interesting when clothing makes too much sound because it's almost imposing onto an audience, orally. So I try to sometimes avoid things that are too noisy. Thank you, from all of us. So Yvonne, I also wanted to talk with you a bit about bodily sensation, bodily experience and how you leverage bodily experience to create new interfaces as well with what you do. Thank you. So in some ways, I think things we as interaction designers and developers do is similar to what Derek is doing, is that we're trying to communicate, is this instead of communicating with the others or with the physical world, we're trying to build systems to allow us to communicate with virtual and abstract constructs we create in digital domain, right? And I started thinking about this actually in the early 90s when I just started working on this interaction with my 20s, and this idea that was inspired by all this cyberpunk and all this science fiction stuff when you go and there's a virtual world and everything's completely artificial, how would you interact with that? Like how would you interact with something? And what I understand at that time is that we're already living in that world. The world of cyberpunk is here and it was here in the 90s. It's just we don't think it this way, right? Because we're using keyboards and mouses and it doesn't create the experience of being there. But we're already there. We're spending more and more lives in the world which we created through the computers. We are really living in virtual reality and less and less live in the physical world. So how can create interfaces which make our interaction with the virtual world more engaging and efficient and so it feels right? So and natural, yeah, natural because evolutionary we're not designed to live in the world of ideas, right? We live in the physical world with trees and stuff and stones. So how can we remap our physical body to be efficient in this virtual environment? That was kind of my thoughts almost 20 years ago. So I started in virtual reality and I quickly realized that technology is simply not there. So we can design and imagine a lot of things and come up with different ideas to create this kind of amazing interfaces where we simply don't have technology and then you know, you work with artists and designers and you create installations and media sort of performances but it felt always to me like one off. So that's why I kind of went on and said I'm gonna create those technologies myself and create those technologies which would allow me to start building these experiences. And it took almost 20 years. You know, it's pretty quick. I know, I know, it's depending how you. Okay. Yeah, so I think that's sort of that's, I think in a natural that's maybe kind of my approach is that, you know, as our life becoming kind of split between physical reality and the virtual reality which we're creating. And it's not questions what is good or bad. I'm not asking kind of moralistic questions about what was the right thing to do. It's just a fact. So, and we need to adapt to that. So I'm trying to build that opportunity for people to express themselves physically by being part of this virtual reality world. Well, and that's what's interesting too is thinking about the world as an interface, you know and the jacket you're wearing, you know is something that you can swipe up on and control your phone and there's a backpack. And you know, I mean, like it's so interesting to me as humans, you know, that there's still of course is this desire for tangibility for the physical world. I mean, that's what we know. That's what we feel and understand. But then there also is this access into another digital domain. That's exactly correct. You know, it's a tough challenge because as you completely correctly mentioned is that we're not... Oh my God, he just did it. Literally with his jacket. That's right. That's how I do it. That's so funny. Sorry. Good timing. See, it works. The DJ back there. Yeah, exactly. So this is a, it's played in dramatic music. Specifically for... So I think there's a question of how much we want to alter ourself and how much we want to create technology which allows us to map us into the virtual world, right? And you have people who go in so far ahead they find them surgically modifying themselves and then magnets too. You can feel radio waves and magnetic fields by magnets embedded into your body. Mostly art work, art world do this kind of stuff. People who are genetically modifying themselves. I was in Russia about a year ago and this whole camp of people who's trying to kind of like genetically modify themselves, artists. And they invited me to this camp and I said like, yeah, you guys later. I'm kind of busy. I'm not coming. How are they doing that? I think all the stem cells stuff, they inject the stuff in themselves. They control doses of radiation, infusing, mutation, crazy stuff. So I think the only place you can do this stuff is in Russia, I think, because they're just, they're crazy over there. But this is really far off, right? But it's not necessarily unimaginable, right? So at some point our ability to communicate with the digital world will be limited by what we can do. So we already have people seriously talking about brain-machine interfaces, right? That's what we do, right? We try to copy brain waves and see how we can remap our brain waves into things happening in physical reality, virtual reality. We also have an opposite directions where you have a lot of things become actuated through digital world, right? So now we have self-driving cars just to talk about the moment, right? So that's another big question that you were mentioning that that kind of gives you a little bit of, you know. Yeah, can I understand people's resistance to that because it is anxiety-ridden to understand, you know, how am I supposed to get around without being in control? And I think that what we're talking about is a new frontier of giving up some of our traditional control and being open to, obviously we're gonna be controlled somewhere or another. Yeah, well, and even let me ask, and let me ask you this, Derek, you know, I mean, for all of these efforts, and you know, we really do see our lives and our world now moving into this digital domain then, what is the value of physical experience, of tangibility? I think that tangibility is always going to be part of human nature. I think the conversation in terms of fashion right now is not so much about the touch and feel, but the ideas, whether it's the Me Too movement or just the minority women's rights. So those are very cerebral concepts that come through design and express through design. But I think that what's interesting is that maybe in this new world, we can let some of those kind of old world concepts that kind of bind us and find a new world, you know, that is not, that doesn't have this kind of stain on it that we have to fight against, I think. I think that's very interesting. Yeah, and we just mentioned, talk about what does it mean to be human, right? And now the question is, are we still humans, right? And this is not so simple as it seems because I was telling the story when I was working back in Disney, I was working in the animal kingdom, one of the parks which pretty much a zoo. And then we'll build these big interactive installations which play this kind of a computer-generated sounds. And there was an animal right next to us in one of those wild animal. And we had to stop it because the handlers told us that it's so stressed out it may die. So die from the sounds which is not familiar, right? So we don't die from sounds which is not familiar. So are we still human? Because I think the wild animals, they don't handle this really well. They don't really adapt to it. They're really programmed to live a certain life and everything different creates stress which is fatal. So that's what's... We die from our work, from our career. Exactly, you know? No, sleep, no, yeah. But slow death, it doesn't, this is the... We don't hear very well compared to other animals but we will die from our own journey. But I think that all of that is really interesting and that came up when we were talking about this book called Are We Human by Beatrice Colomina and Mark Wigley which very interestingly discusses this idea about design and how we're constantly evolving as humans and we're constantly designing for ourselves and for new humans. I mean there is a level of adaptability with our species. Exactly, I mean that's why we're here. That's why we're able to speak into this and talk about ideas and communicate. Yes. Some of us, not all of us. You know, and so stepping back a little bit and even thinking about embodied experience, work that engages the body, why is that valuable? Why do that? I want to pass it to you. Let's start with Yvonne. Well, I mean there is... The question why is probably the most complex question you can ask, right? Because it touches on the reasons like why we're living and why we're doing stuff. If you ask commercial entities, like if you're working for some big corporations, the value would be like what the user experience is, how well it sells your product, does it answer some user needs. It becomes very kind of boringly bureaucratically sort of, what's the KPIs, what's the sales number, how has improved the stock. So this is one why, right? So creating something which engages people and making them happy, they like products and they will use the products which design better and engage them on the physical level emotionally, better than if just explain them what it does, right? So I mean this is this angle. I find this is important of course and I would not argue against that but I think it's not the only reason I feel. I think in many reasons it's just kind of innate nature of people to push ourself, right? To innovate. We don't innovate because we have to. We innovate because it's we want to, right? The question is like why did you climb the mountain Everest? The first guy who was, I don't know, was some sort of something in England. Mr. Everest? Yeah. He had naming rights. He's like why did you climb the mountain Everest? His answer was because it's there, right? So similarly I think we try to understand ourself like in humans being fundamental and comfortable with the idea of being humans, you know? And we're trying to understand ourself and we do this by changing ourself and changing our experiences and trying to understand how these experiences evolve and society changes all the time. It's so complex. So I think this is combination of two factors, right? These are factors of basic needs and our needs are changing but also the factors that we just as humans it's in our nature to push us forward constantly as a species. I think a lot of times when we talk about ideas and we're projecting into the, we always talk about a group of people right now this whole obsession with millennials and then now we're talking about generation Z and there is obviously it applies as a collective but why do we need something that's tangible that is more individual is because within that group, let's say a millennial, if you're a disabled millennial so you have different needs and different requirements when it comes to fashion or transportation. So to understand that we're not just designing for a collective generation but we're also paying attention to the individual because that's really kind of how we experience the world. We don't always, we have our friends and we have our graduating class and we have our generation but at the end of the day, you're an individual and you're experiencing your life through your body and your body is very different from the next person. Yeah, absolutely. And it's actually interesting in Yvonne, your object investigation which was a little while ago in the trustee room you pulled up images of the Sony Walkman for instance and an early Sony transistor radio from 1957 and even thinking about that idea of radios and what it was and they used to be like pieces of furniture in our homes that you would sit around with your family and who's controlling who gets to turn that dial? It's the parents, you know and so all of a sudden when technology and such allows us to be more individual to make our own individual choices. I mean there still is something which is really inherently innately a part of us that we want to be in control and to express ourselves. Especially now I think again we're having this two conversation of a group of people. Again I use the example of millennials because it's such a hot topic right now and then there's the individual and how do I stand out? So every individual has their own story and everybody has their own way of engaging in the world and their history. And I think that those are two kind of poles in just contemporary conversations. What's the group? But let's not forget the individual, you know. We only have a couple minutes left. So I want to ask a question of each of you. So Yvonne, having now studied and practiced design for over 20 years what has design taught you? In one answer. I'm not a traditional designer. So I'm kind of working on an intersection of... My designs are so futuristic. I can't create them. So I end up creating technologies to kind of create my designs. Design for them is about communication. That's what design is about and everything is about telling a story. And I actually learned that mostly actually in the World of Disney Company when I was working for Disney because there is always what is the story? What is the story? What's the story trying to tell? It's always the story. When they build a park, they don't bring technology people in the room, they bring writers and, you know, animators and painters and that's how they create the first parks. So story and communications, I think, the design is about communication. And we communicate through many, many different tools. Clothing and everything else. I communicate through creating technologies for communication. This is my main observation. Derek, how about for you? I think as a designer, I come to... And I'm sure many people will say, I come more and more to realize that I know nothing. That I have my culture and I have my experience and I have my experience as someone who works in design. But at the same time, things can disrupt the conversation that I never thought about, even as something that seems so random or so different from fashion design, which is like income disparity or sustainability. And when you come across that and you realize, you know what, I never thought of that. And so what does that make me as a designer? Because I was thinking of my work from a different angle. So I tell new designers or young designers, I'm like, you just have to think harder. And part of it is thinking out of the box and saying to yourself, I know nothing. I can apply my experience, but it needs to be relevant. I guess relevance, especially someone in my age bracket. I'm not millennial. I'm like, I was like, what is this millennial pink? But it's humbling, right? I mean, acknowledging that you know nothing. If you're a creative person, you have to be humble, I think, because otherwise you become calcified. Yeah, yeah, I like that. So with that, yeah. So with that, thank you, Derek, Yvonne. And thank you, everyone.