After the self-imposed imprisonment at the edge of darkness (aka writing my first two academic essays after more than the decade). I burst forth into the late January gloom to revive my cultural visitations around the capital. DECODE: DIGITAL DESIGN SENSATIONS at the V&A offered an hour of amusing diversion. The darkened entrance illuminated by tactile fronds offered some initial drama. Limbering you up so to speak for the interactive exhibits to follow. Many of the items involve posing in front of a camera - it’s the perfect exhibition for the narcissist in you…and there’s opportunities to touch, shout (although it’s funny to note how many people didn’t want to let out any loud noises) and generally engage the senses. The exhibition is broken into three parts, Code, Interactivity & Network. Code offered the requisite Flash/After Effects/complex computer programming showboating which of course looks good but artistically leaves me cold, perhaps some exhibits lack a real message or emotional depth. Interactivity had my favourite piece in, Weave Mirror - the back of which looked as fascinating as the front and I thought offered a reflection on the self in a more interesting way than some of the other exhibits. Network for me was about how to make data interesting’ and being addicted to the iphone’s Flight Control app, it was cool to see the pattern flow of Flight Patterns generated by Aaron Koblin. Does that make me a plane-spotter? All-in-all worth a look.
