Museum of Modern Art curator and SVA faculty member Paola Antonelli (MFA Design and MFA Design Criticism Departments) has put together an impressive show at MoMA. “Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects” (on view through November 7, 2011) focuses on objects that involve direct interaction and features nearly 200 projects, ranging from video games and robots to cell phone apps and Web sites.

On MoMA’s “Talk to Me” Web site, which was designed specifically for the show, Antonelli writes, “In contrast to the twentieth-century triumph of semiotics, which looked down on communication as nothing but a mechanical transmission of coded meaning, the twenty-first century has begun as one of pancommunication—everything and everybody conveying content and meaning in all possible combinations, from one-on-one to everything-on-everybody. We now expect objects to communicate, a cultural shift made evident when we see children searching for buttons or sensors on a new object, even when the object has no batteries or plug.”

“Talk to Me,” which The New York Times calls “one of the smartest design shows in years,” also includes work by MFA Interaction Design faculty member Robert Faludi, who collaborated on Botanicalls, which allows household plants to communicate via Twitter when they need watering.

For more information about “Talk to Me,” visit MoMA’s Web site.

Image: Installation view of “Talk to Me” at MoMA, 2011. Photo © Scott Rudd.