Jürg Lehni

Join us for a conversation between Swiss artist and designer Jürg Lehni and Associate Curator of Architecture and Design Joseph Becker as they discuss the many relationships between language, the human urge to communicate and display information, and the technologies that we come up with to do so. Lehni’s practice draws on many disciplines, dealing with the nuances of technology, tools, and the creative process. His works include the large-scale chalk-drawing machine, Viktor (2006–16), installed at SFMOMA in the exhibition Typeface to Interface, as well as software-based structures and frameworks, such as Paper.js, Scriptographer, and Vectorama.org. Interested both in the mechanics of invention and the content of drawings that are reproduced with his platforms, Lehni and collaborator Jenny Hirons have created A Taxonomy of Communication. This series of drawings, performed regularly by Viktor over the course of the exhibition, charts a history of visual language, as well as processes and tools for communication, from smoke signals to the gestures we use to communicate with our devices.