Neri Oxman is an artist by circumstance. She is, first and foremost, an MIT professor, doctor of architecture, materials scientist, and synthetic biologist who happens to have a solo exhibit currently standing at New York’s MOMA—she’s unpinnable. Thankfully, Oxman has invented a word for herself: Material Ecologist. The field of Material Ecology itself is her brainchild, a new design approach devoted to reaching “a ‘material singularity’ where there will be little to no distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artificial.’”

These words evoke John von Neumann, who once prophesied, amid Cold War paranoia, that accelerating technology and science would force “some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.” Oxman, for one, wouldn’t mind the cessation of some human affairs—take environmental destruction, animal cruelty, and, above all, the production line mindset that hurried humanity into these messes.

Perhaps the best way to learn what Oxman wants to add to the world is to understand what she wants to remove from it. “Bricks are dumber than cells, and synthetic fibers are yet to fire electrical signals into the textiles they inhabit,” she says. “Biology is still far more refined and sophisticated than material practices. If bricks were smart, buildings would likely weigh less, generate less carbon, and function more like a body than a building, accommodating for multiple functions rather than one.”

Hence Oxman’s MOMA exhibition. Aesthetically, the works here tread the line between human and alien, like sci-fi set pieces. Take Silk II, a pavilion of elaborate silk structures intricately woven not by man or machine, but by silkworms influenced by the modulation of heat and light. Aguahoja I and II are collections of materials experiments “whose makeup is informed by and designed to inform their environments in remedial ways.” The structures combine natural materials, like cellulose, chitin, and pectin, with colors augmented with pigments from cinnamon, turmeric, and beetroot that double as natural attractants and repellents. The visual result: prints that each look like their own odd combination of leaf, seaweed, and dragonfly wing.

“Paola [Antonelli] and Anna [Burckhardt] were the true conductors of this orchestral show,” Oxman shares, citing the curators of the exhibition. “All in all, the show is a product of our love for process, and includes ‘demos,’ as Paola brilliantly refers to them, rather than finished functional products. The goal was to curate a collection of enabling technologies and a compendium, or a ‘library of experiments’ demonstrating new functionalities associated with possible emerging material properties; for example, solar harnessing enabled through glass 3D printing, as well as the possibility to embed living organisms and their material outputs within structures for sensing and actuation purposes.”

NERI OXMAN. OVERVIEW OF THE FULL SERIES OF FIFTEEN MASKS (2018). DESIGNED BY NERI OXMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE MEDIATED MATTER GROUP FOR THE NEW ANCIENT COLLECTION. CURATED AND 3D PRINTED BY STRATASYS. PHOTO BY YORAM RESHEF. COURTESY OF NERI OXMAN AND T… — NERI OXMAN. OVERVIEW OF THE FULL SERIES OF FIFTEEN MASKS (2018). DESIGNED BY NERI OXMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE MEDIATED MATTER GROUP FOR THE NEW ANCIENT COLLECTION. CURATED AND 3D PRINTED BY STRATASYS. PHOTO BY YORAM RESHEF. COURTESY OF NERI OXMAN AND THE MEDIATED MATTER GROUP.

NERI OXMAN. G3DP. ILLUMINATED 3D PRINTED GLASS STRUCTURE ON DISPLAY AT THE MIT MEDIA LAB. PHOTO BY CHIKARA INAMURA. COURTESY OF NERI OXMAN AND THE MEDIATED MATTER GROUP.

Oxman didn’t set out with artistic intentions. The exhibition derives from her work as the head of Mediated Matter Group, an MIT research team at the cutting edge of computation, materials science, and biology “seeking to invent and deploy new tools, techniques, and technologies with which to design and construct things in the bio-digital age.” It doesn’t sound like art because it’s not. Oxman clarifies, “We do not engage in art per se, nor do we make it an end goal to integrate STEM fields into our ‘art.’”

So why is Neri Oxman featured at the Museum of Modern Art? The easy answer is that nature is beautiful, and Oxman’s work augments nature. Whether it be a solar-harnessing glass facade or death masks grown from live biological materials, she has introduced a striking aesthetic that pushes familiar designs in radical trajectories.

But the truth here is found in the sum of its parts. “The exhibition is less a collection of products and more a constellation of processes and possible connections between them,” Oxman explains. “This focus on enabling technologies, not objects, calls the designer to assume a bigger identity, one that is less about human-centric choices and more about societal impact and connectivity.”

Oxman is not a designer of product; she is a designer of systems. “Designs that are system-driven, like the iPhone or the Parthenon, are larger than themselves,” she demonstrates. “The former is at once an interface, a technology, and ‘object of desire.’ The latter is at once a building and an embodiment of democracy.” Oxman’s system is one of natural harmony, one in which silkworms are collaborated with and not exploited.

Her job is to heal the world, and her solution is to unleash her undimmed creativity. Just as Dalí conveyed the surreal and Michelangelo the divine, Oxman foresees a not-so-distant future in which our consumerist norms have been upended by environmental synchronicity. Yes, she is a scientist, but one with an infectious, artistic vision. “I like to say,” she says, “that we are not problem solvers but solution seekers to problems we may have not known existed. Our projects necessitate that we invent the technologies to create them.”

Neri Oxman is brilliant, a new type of cultural treasure. To say she is interdisciplinary would be an understatement—she disregards discipline altogether. She has the confidence not only to bend technology at her will but to envision a fundamentally different society. It’s a world nothing like the one we know, and we better do our best to prepare for it.

Written by Jake Carver