Art of Noise—A Conversation with Curator Joseph Becker and Filmmaker Gary Hustwit

Why It Matters

Understanding the design evolution of music playback reveals how objects shape cultural memory and informs future product innovation, reinforcing museums as catalysts for interdisciplinary creativity.

Key Takeaways

• Curators blend design and music to trace a century of playback evolution.
• Exhibition features over 100 objects, from wax cylinders to streaming interfaces.
• Listening room integrates active DJ sessions, emphasizing intentional sound experiences.
• Graphic design, especially album covers, highlighted as visual extensions of music.
• Collaboration with Teenage Engineering showcases contemporary, high‑touch music product design.

Summary

The Cooper Hewitt’s "Art of Noise" exhibition, curated by Joseph Becker and introduced alongside filmmaker Gary Hustwit, celebrates the intersection of design and music as it opens on the Upper East Side. Drawing from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s original show, the exhibit showcases hundreds of artifacts—photographs, posters, vinyl, digital players—that map a century of audio playback evolution.

Becker explains that the exhibition travels from wax cylinders and early radio to eight‑tracks, LPs, cassettes, MP3s, and today’s streaming platforms, while also spotlighting graphic design’s role in album covers and concert posters. A dedicated listening room, curated with Devon Turnbull, offers live DJ sets and active listening experiences, reinforcing themes of craft, precision, and intentionality. The display also dedicates sections to New York’s musical genres—folk, salsa, disco, new wave, hip‑hop—linking regional culture to design objects.

Notable moments include Becker’s personal reflection on music’s intimate objects, the partnership with Swedish studio Teenage Engineering for sleek, high‑touch speakers, and Hustwit’s comparison of film versus exhibition as storytelling media. References to his Brian Eno documentary and discussions of Roms’s post‑war design clarity illustrate how historic design philosophies continue to inspire contemporary creators.

The show underscores how design shapes auditory experiences, offering visitors a tactile narrative of technological progress and cultural memory. By merging historical artifacts with interactive programming, Cooper Hewitt positions itself as a hub for interdisciplinary insight, encouraging designers, musicians, and the public to reconsider the objects that mediate sound.

Original Description

From concert posters to record albums, phonographs to digital music players, handheld radios to sound systems, Art of Noise takes visitors on an exploration of how design has transformed our relationship to music over the past 100 years. Join us to learn more about this groundbreaking exhibition with a special introductory conversation with Joseph Becker, curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Gary Hustwit, a documentary filmmaker known for his work addressing design and music.

Becker and Hustwit will reveal insights into the history and making of the exhibition, which travels to Cooper Hewitt from SFMOMA. At Cooper Hewitt, Art of Noise will feature more than 300 objects drawn largely from the collections of Cooper Hewitt and SFMOMA, as well as unique sound environments designed by Stockholm-based studio teenage engineering and multi-disciplinary artist Devon Turnbull.