On the cold evening of April 10, 1917, thousands gathered in front of the Grand Central Palace in New York City to participate in opening the largest ever art exhibition held in the city. The show was prepared by The Society of Independent Artists. Marcel Duchamp was the only European artist listed in the exhibition's catalogue. According to the rules, for a one-dollar fee plus annual five-dollar membership due, anyone could submit two pieces of art. The exhibition's governing principle was to create artistic freedom, and indeed, some 2,500 works of art awaited the public. One of the pieces submitted by Duchamp was titled Fountain.

Some say the idea for this piece came to life when Duchamp visited a store on Fifth Avenue accompanied by Joseph Stella and Walter Arensberg. There, he purchased a standard Bedfordshire urinal. After being signed R. Mutt 1917 and placed vertically, this very urinal was submitted by Duchamp to the show. Since the society could not reject any entry, Fountain was accepted only after much discussion - just in time to be placed behind a partition so nobody could see it. Some say it was not Duchamp's idea, but one of his female friends using a pseudonym, Richard Mutt, who sent the show the urinal. There is not much evidence, and soon after the show, the original was lost. There is only one photograph of the original piece by Alfred Stieglitz.

Duchamp and his readymade objects were rediscovered in the 1950s, and Duchamp's Fountain become one of the cultural icons of modern art - the context changed everything. Placing a plumbing fixture on a pedestal in an art gallery created a new way of looking at it. It was not about the artist who crafted the art - it was the action of choosing something that changes its original purpose or context. Many years ago at school we played with an exercise where one would select a possible artwork from random paint splashes using a small paper window. Once framed, those uninspiring colour messes would become quite fancy-looking paintings. Again, framing and granting a different status created a different experience.

“Since a three-dimensional object casts a two-dimensional shadow, we should be able to imagine the unknown four-dimensional object whose shadow we are. I for my part am fascinated by the search for a one-dimensional object that casts no shadow at all.”
― Marcel Duchamp

When I saw photos of Polestar—the new electric car, which looks fantastic—and how they advertise visiting their space as a novel experience, Duchamp and his ideas come to mind. The videos and photos present a minimalistic, Scandinavian design with several large drawers or wall cabinets with museum-style labels explaining each artifact's details. I use the word artifact because when you look at the front suspension vertically mounted inside a glass cabinet, spotless and shiny, with a gold shock absorber, it looks like a sculpture, and I would be delighted to have it at home. Then, there are the materials used inside the cabin. The overarching design principle, according to the Polestar team, was to make everything recyclable. Instead of covering seats with leather, they opted to develop a new material produced from recycled plastic bottles—no need to follow the well-established path. Polestar went for something different. It is different but not too distant - it is still a car, it has all the elements one would expect to find in the cabin, yet the experience seems to be different. I haven't taken this car for a test drive, and that is definitely on my to-do list, but even more, I want to see the showroom.

At Ibbaka Talent with the Skill Profile for an individual, a team or a company, we also aim to create a new experience. Skills are not physical artifacts that one can put on a display in a glass cabinet. Although if a holograph display could be used a 3-dimensional, rotating skill map could take a typical, boring spreadsheet onto another reality level. I am sorry, we don't have a holographic projector yet. Still, we have a dynamically generated skill map. Knowing how important context is, we want our users to look at their skills and those of their colleagues and see a powerful representation of their potential. When a job or a role is connected to a competency model, the system identifies any gaps between a assessed skill levels and what is required for the role. It is not a big deal - just observe the difference, but when you aggregate this to the team level or the whole company, the context changes everything. Now, add a few filters, and suddenly, you have a display of each team's potential. This is different.

Let's not forget the individual skills. They are the building blocks of our platform. Of course, one can create a traditional role by adding several skills and adjusting the required level of expertise. However, using a similar set of skills and adding a couple of new ones, or changing the context, can result in a new career path. The platform will suggest potential skills. These days, everyone is talking about career mobility, flexibility and resilience - we support that. If you want to learn more, just click on the link below and we can start a conversation.