An exhibition at the Design Museum in London is challenging contemporary designers to explore – in the medium of crystal – the future of memory in our fast-developing digital age. The premise of Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum is to create a debate around the changing nature of our relationship with objects over time.

‘With the demise of the analogue era our relationship and connection with personal memory, photographs, diaries, letters, time and ephemera is changing,’ explains the museum’s director Deyan Sudjic.

‘Digital Crystal questions our relationship with the changing world. It seems all too easy to lose connection with the tangible and the real, as we move ever faster through a digital age where memory and the personal possessions we once held so highly are now online, or gone in an instant.’

Ron Arad, Yves Béhar, Maarten Baas, Troika and Fredrikson Stallard are amongst the 15 designers who have worked alongside Swarovski to create works that explores some of these notions. They feature alongside a select number of updated works from the Swarovski archives.

The public is invited to share memories and be a part of the exhibition by tweeting or texting Ron Arad’s installation, Lolita, from anywhere in the world – sending messages that travel around the crystal using complex LED technology.

Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum from 5 September 2012 – 13 January 2013

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