Interview by Dante Carlos
Turning into Space
Muriel Cooper
Muriel Cooper
When talking about pioneers of the electronic communication, one of the most unremembered persons is Muriel Cooper, maybe the first graphic designer in applying her abilities into the computer screen. Born in 1925, she graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1952. She discovered computers by accident in 1967 while attending a MIT summer course taught by Nicholas Negroponte, when she was working as graphic designer for the publications office of the MIT. She
Teacher
left the class dumbstruck when, while observing the codified data of Fortran in the screen exclaimed: “it doesn’t make any goddamned sense to me!�. Nevertheless, after the initial impact she left convinced of the huge creative potential of the tool and five years later, in 1973, founded the Visible Language Workshop in the MIT Media Lab together
Communicator
with Ron MacNeil, with the goal to encourage the students to use the graphic design tools to translate the dull data from the computers in something easier to understand, using text and images. As software design becomes less enigmatic, more will be discovered about its history, and Muriel Cooper
Graphic Designer
will finally be given the recognition she deserves.
Turning Time into Space Muriel Cooper in conversation with unidentified males at MIT, 1970s BY DANTE CARLOS
“She often wandered around barefoot… and climbed up on tables when she was excited about a project… Muriel was clearly in her element, making trouble,” recounted MIT Press editors Larry Cohen and Roger Conover. Muriel Cooper, who was best known for articulating the graphic language of MIT for more than 40 years, also challenged the limitations of contemporary communication. As a troublemaker, she principles of design into new strategies for visualizing information. And her enthusiasm for shaking things up was matched by her eagerness for working with Muriel Cooper with David Small, Suguru Ishizaki and Lisa Strauseld, still from Information Landscapes, 1994
emerging technologies, a precursor to our increasingly seamless relationship with information and tech. All while barefoot.
Muriel Cooper 4
conceptually (and literally) transformed conventional
Muriel Cooper toward the end of a photo shoot in 1988
Captured through memories, ephemera, video clips, publications, and other works, Cooper is the focus of the exhibition Messages and Means: Muriel Cooper at MIT, currently on view at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at Columbia in New York City. I recently had a chance to catch up with co-curators David Reinfurt and Robert Wiesenberger to talk about this project. Muriel Cooper, Poster to promote The Bauhaus, 1969
Hello David and Rob.
understood, and these
the Office of Publications.
Can you tell us a little
can be set in art contexts
By the mid-60s she was
about yourselves?
as often as not. Much
the first Design Director
Robert Wiesenberger:
of my work is together
at the MIT Press, where
Hi Dante. I’m a PhD
with Stuart Bailey under
she rationalized their
candidate in art history
the name Dexter Sinister.
production system
at Columbia. Officially,
I also work with Stuart
and designed classic
I study 20th-century
and Angie Keefer on The
books like The Bauhaus
architecture, though I also
Serving Library, an online
(1969) and Learning
tend to focus a lot on
and printed publishing
from Las Vegas (1972),
design, variously defined.
project. I also teach at
along with about 500
This fall I began teaching
Princeton University and
others. In the mid-70s
a seminar on graphic
this feeds my practice.
she founded the Visible
design history in the
Finally, I also do projects
Language Workshop
MFA program at the Yale
on my own or with other
in MIT’s Department of
School of Art.
people, such as this one
Architecture, where she
with Rob.
taught experimental
Muriel Cooper 5
David Reinfurt:
printing and hands-on
I am a graphic designer
Who was Muriel Cooper?
production. And by
in a fairly expanded
RW: Muriel Cooper
the mid-80s, she was a
sense. I am often working
(1925–1994) was a graphic
founding member of the
on projects which
designer who spent the
MIT Media Lab, designing
aren’t strictly graphic
bulk of her career working
early computer interfaces.
design, or not in the
at MIT. In the mid-50s, she
way it is conventionally
started as a designer in
Why were you interested
DR: I first bumped into
in collaborating on an
Muriel’s work shortly after
exhibition about her
she delivered a talk at
work?
the fifth TED Conference in Monterey, California in 1994. She presented radical new work in computer interface design, showing a constellation of three-dimensional typographic interfaces developed with her students and colleagues at the Visible Language Workshop in the MIT Media Lab. I had just started a job in the brandnew area of “interaction design” at IDEO in San Francisco, working for a former student of Muriel’s. At this point, her work was everywhere —the cover of ID Magazine for example. And it was the model for what we were trying to do there. She passed
Installation view of Messages and Means: Muriel Cooper at MIT; Photo: James Ewing Photography
away unexpectedly soon after the TED talk and I had often been surprised (dismayed) that the provocations she offered were not taken up more
MIT Media Lab promotional Laser Disc, jacket by Betsy Hacker, MIT Design Services, video text produced at the Visible Language Workshop, 1986
“We hope to make the tools and to use them.”
Muriel Cooper 8
fully in the following years.
RW: My first exposure
The three panels broadly
to Muriel was on my
—over-simplistically—
bookshelf, looking at her
reflect the three
designs for classics of art
overlapping phases of her
and architectural history
career: As a designer (for
in the ’60s and ’70s, and
the Office of Publications
her seven-bar colophon
and MIT Press), as a
that still appears on the
teacher (for the Visible
spine of every MIT Press
Language Workshop),
Book. The story only got
and as a researcher. The
better when I learned
chronology is loose, but
about her work with
generally follows these
interfaces.
three successive phases.
RW: We included a
For example, Nicholas
Still, we don’t want
handful of Muriel’s key
Negroponte’s The
Could you walk us
to suggest a lockstep
books on art, design,
Architecture Machine
through the exhibition?
teleology toward new
and architecture in
(1970) is interesting both
What can we expect to
media, that all Muriel’s
the show. She also
as a design object and
see?
work culminated in the
produced beautiful
as an insight into the
RW: This show brings
digital. We think her
books on chemistry and
AI (artificial intelligence
together Muriel’s
concerns with production
geophysics, but she was
systems) being developed
photos, sketches, prints,
and rapid feedback
really involved with the
at MIT at the time — for
mechanicals, books, and
were quite consistent
debates on architecture,
him about architecture,
videos. In many ways,
throughout, that the
design, cybernetics,
for her about graphic
preparing it was a media
tools (many of which she
artificial intelligence, and
design. Muriel worked
archaeology of the very
made or modified) finally
so on; this environment
with Negroponte and
recent past: We salvaged
caught up with her.
at MIT and in Cambridge
his Architecture Machine
more broadly, full
Group, which evolved into
Muriel Cooper 9
some incredible materials,
“Messages and Means was design and communication for print that integrated the reproduction tools as part of the thinking process and reduced the gap between process and product.”
from a variety of sources,
DR: Central to our
of Bauhäusler and
the MIT Media Lab, where
and in an amazing range
approach is Muriel’s idea
remarkable researchers,
Cooper taught. The idea
of formats (slides, digital
of responsive graphic
both shaped her, and
with these books is that,
and audio cassettes, laser
systems and design
was shaped by her. These
given the premium on
discs, etc.).
processes that embed an
few, full books in the
“visual communication,”
explicit feedback loop.
show (we show many
you really can pick them
The GSAPP exhibitions
Describing Messages and
other book covers) form
up in the gallery and get
team did a smart job
Means, the course she
a kind of spine for an
a good sense of what
creating a custom steel
taught at MIT and which
intellectual history that
they’re about.
structure that suspends
gives our exhibition its
runs through it. They’re
three long walls in the
name, she said:
overdetermined, in terms
gallery, two of them angled.
of both form and content.
Muriel Cooper, mechanical artwork for the MIT Press colophon, 1963–4
Muriel Cooper, Visible Language Workshop letterhead, c.1979 Letter from Muriel Cooper to Jeffery Cruikshank on the Visible Language Workshop letterhead. Excerpt from the exhibition booklet, with extended captions keyed by panel number
What was the exhibition
remained consistent, but
process like?
neither the media nor
DR: We spent a ton of
the situations stayed still.
time in archives, making
So it was challenging to
some kind of order, and
pick what to show. Plus
trying to understand
it was the first time a
various artefacts — what
show like this has been
were they, who made
organized since Muriel
them, how were they
died in ’94. (Though there
intended? Talking to
was a small exhibition
Muriel’s many, still-active
convened in that year, at
colleagues and students
MIT, by Cooper’s friend,
was crucial to figuring
Tom Wong, who also
out what was what.
consolidated her papers
The selection process
at MassArt.)
was frankly quite tricky: Selecting a small group of difficult as her interests Muriel Cooper, Sketch for the MIT Press colophon, 1963–1964
Muriel Cooper and MIT Press Design Department for Donis A. Dondis, A Primer of Visual Literacy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1973).
Muriel Cooper and Ron MacNeil, Messages and Means course poster, designed and printed at the Visible Language Workshop, MIT, c. 1974
Muriel Cooper 12
outstanding objects was
“it is not hard to imagine Moholy using a computer”
What was the MIT’s
he later recommended
relationship to design
her to work for the MIT
at the time she began
Press). It’s not really
working there?
representative of her later
RW: MIT was doing
work, which is rougher,
serviceable design work
and more about process
when Muriel began there.
and dynamism, but does
Gyorgy Kepes, a former
suggest her formation,
colleague of Moholy-
and a point of departure.
Nagy’s, and since 1947 a teacher at MIT, thought
Cooper claims that the
MIT’s design presence
Office of Publications
could be much stronger
— renamed “Design
and suggested that
Services” under her
they hire a dedicated
tenure — was the first
designer for their Office
dedicated design
of Publications. Both
program at an American
there and at the MIT Press
university. We couldn’t
Muriel created systems
confirm that, but it
to standardize formats
certainly was one of
and production and
the first. Likewise, no
give a consistent look to
academic publisher had
publications.
the kind of dedicated
Muriel Cooper 13
design department that And her earliest work
she established at the
at MIT — which we
MIT Press, and nobody
debated whether or not
else’s typography was
to include — is in fact
as modern. Clearly
quite “pretty” in a mid-
Cambridge was an
century way that Paul
exciting place for design.
Rand would be proud of
When Cooper started
(and indeed was proud
at MIT, Gyorgy Kepes
of; Cooper met Rand
was teaching there, and
during a brief stint at ad
Walter Gropius was the
agencies in New York, and
head of the Harvard GSD.
Muriel Cooper, self-portrait with Polaroid SX-70, video imaged and printed at the Visible Language Workshop, MIT, c. 1982
Some of the main graphic design works published by the MIT. Lightworks Academi Honesty Give blood MIT7Red Cross Blood Drive March 2-11, 1983 Student Center For further information Call x3-7911
“…make more intelligible the highly complex language of science… and articulate in symbolic, graphic form the order and beauty inherent in the scientist’s abstract vision.”
Were there other
Brockmann also came
DR: Muriel was frustrated
information based on the
designers at the time
through the office. So
with the limitations of the
reader/user’s interest, was
who were exploring
Muriel imbibed a lot
printed page, and always
her goal. The computer
themes Cooper was also
of this “International
interested in quicker
screen offered more
interested in?
Style” typography from
feedback, non-linear
depth, and information
RW: Definitely. Muriel
her colleagues, and no
experiences and the
environments — real
doubt from what she
layering of information.
or simulated — offered
was reading. It’s not
She used an offset
more possibilities for
something she, or anyone
printing press, as she
orientation within this
else at the time, would’ve
said, as “an interactive
space. It was crucial to
gotten from an American
medium.” So when
her that information
design program. It’s
she first encountered
be usable. She saw the
a visual language she
computers, it was clear
designer’s job as creating
used, but also reworked
that these would present
dynamic environments
significantly.
even greater possibilities.
through which
hired her college classmate Jacqueline Casey to work at Design Services. She would soon head the office until her retirement in 1989. Casey, Ralph Coburn and Dietmar Winkler were the core of that Muriel Cooper 15
office, and they also had
“Experiment and play as a part of professional discipline is difficult at best. This is not only true of an offset press but of all activities where machines are between the concept and the product.”
information would stream,
guest designers, one of
What do you think
whom, from Basel, pretty
was her interest in
RW: Integrating word
much got them on their
transitioning between
and image on screen
Helvetica kick.
spaces, from print to
(“Typographics”), in a
They recall that people
digital, or from flat to
way that filtered and
like Gerstner and Müller-
dimensional?
communicated
rather than designing unique and static objects.
pretty and intuitive — but at their inflexibility, their resistance to being hacked, or to using them to make new things. I think she would also be deeply troubled by their Muriel Cooper with David Small, Suguru Ishizaki and Lisa Strauseld, still from Information Landscapes, 1994
intrusiveness, and current questions of privacy and mass surveillance. As she noted in an essay for the Walker’s Design Quarterly in 1989 (one of the few
Do you think she was
that she would publish),
aware of how deep
artificial intelligence in
our contemporary
computers presents
relationship would be
important ethical
with technology and
questions for the designer
interfaces?
of these systems. Coupled
RW: Muriel seems to
with her awareness of the
have always had the
corporate and defense
newest gizmo, whether
sponsorship model for
it was a special digital
the MIT Media Lab, which
watch or the highest-
was indispensable for her
resolution computer
research, the question
displays available outside
of the ends to which
NASA — and whether
her research might be
or not she always knew
put was not far from
exactly how to use them
her mind. In addition to
(she was a bit of a klutz).
being a technologist, she
It also seems that she
was, I think, always also a
predicted so much of our
humanist.
Financial Viewpoints, by Lisa Strausfeld
connection to interfaces and the need for them Muriel Cooper 17
to be intuitive and anticipatory. Yet even she may have been surprised at the extent of it. And very likely frustrated. Not so much at their usability — so many products are
“Some people believe that the computer will eventually think for itself. If so, it is crucial that designers and others with humane intentions involved in the way it develops.”
Financial Viewpoints, by Lisa Strausfeld
Does the exhibition
RW: There’s so much
addresses any
work to do in studying
contemporary issues
and presenting graphic
in design around
design to a broader
communication and
public. We hope this show
information?
generates interest in
DR: We don’t make the
Cooper, and in the field —
connections explicit,
but as the kind of inter- or
but we think they’re
anti-disciplinary one she
absolutely present at
envisioned. At one point,
every turn. Muriel’s words,
in our earlier descriptions,
in some of the documents
we called the exhibition
we show, are incredibly
both an archival project
prophetic, and her
and a manifesto for future
process is no less relevant
production.
today than it was then.
As curators of the exhibition, has this project influenced your own thoughts about your relationship with design? DR: We had an idea that this exhibition would document her work, her persistent concerns, and her generous spirit while also serving as a charge or challenge to those thinking about these things today to pick up these ideas and develop
“Graphics and New Technology.” Slide talk by Muriel Cooper at MIT’s Visible Language Workshop, 1981. Download this podcast via iTunes or iTunes for iPhone/iPad, or view in the iTunes store. for iPhone/iPad, or view in the iTunes store.
“This stands as a sketch for the futur”
Muriel Cooper 20
them.
Carlos Dante
De esta edición: Walker Art Center, The Gradient, Interview: Muriel Cooper: Turning into Space
April 9, 2014 hhtp:/ blogs.walkerart.org/ design/2014/04/09/murielcooper-turning-time-into-space
Diseño
cubierta,
maquetación
edición: Isabel García. L
Printed in Spain: Impreso en
y
Interview by Dante Carlos