TED Talk Design and the Elastic Mind

"Building things bottom up, atom by atom, has made them all into tinkerers, scientists are seeking designers and designers are seeking scientists." I found the talk given by Paola Antonelli, curator at MOMA, particularly interesting. She makes the audience get a grasp of some new beautiful concepts in design, brought to life by the current relationship between technology and design. The mix between large scale and nanotechnology opens the door to a whole new world (e.g. bees trained to detect one type of cancer or pregnancy, working with vitro-meat, grow hair on nails, grow bone tissue so that you can make a wedding ring).

Paola introduces the concept of "existence maximum" (or Existenzmaximum): the design of the ever-shrinking individual space. Designers and scientists are all working on enhancing our senses capabilities so that we can achieve more. They give us new means but does that imply that we actually see things more in-depth? Is new technology a way of escaping from reality and real-interaction? Can we get less from actually thinking we can get more (for example by social-telepresence)? How does technology mingle with emotions? To what extent can Man interfere with Nature?