FAST Light
Record Crowds Celebrated Art, Science and Technology at MIT
Weekend of May 7+8, 2011 from 7 PM – 10 PM
Thousands of spectators young and old saw the light at MIT this past weekend — literally. FAST Light, the finale event of the three-month-long Festival of Art + Science + Technology, illuminated MIT’s campus and the Charles River on Saturday, May 7, and Sunday, May 8. Onlookers filled campus and the banks of the river to see the 20-plus projects that used light as a focal point.
Download a PDF Map of FAST Light events.
A weekend of kinetic illumination kicked off with the launch of Otto Piene’s SKY Event when large-scale, brightly lit stars flew over MIT’s Killian Court. The Charles River and the Mass Ave Bridge were illuminated with projects by MIT faculty Nader Tehrani, Gediminas Urbonas and Meejin Yoon, and researcher Susanne Seitinger.
The 20+ installations by faculty and students listed below include videos of the creative team discussing their installations.
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Dis(Course)4 Student Installation on View
April 21 - presentA stairwell transformed by a shimmering conduit designed to inspire delight, wonder and communication between floors. …
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Liquid Archive
May 7-8, 2011A floating artwork imaginatively extends MIT’s Killian Court beyond Memorial Drive into the Charles River, celebrating the Institute’s inventional history and its sesquicentennial anniversary. …
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SOFT Rockers
April 25-May 8, 2011MIT SOFT Rockers are smart, clean energy charging stations disguised as outdoor rocking lounge furniture. Unlike conventional ‘hard’ urban infrastructure, The SOFT Rocker leverages its environment in a dynamic manner by using the human power of balance. …
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String Tunnel
April 25 - May 8, 2011String Tunnel is a pathfinder to the Infinite Corridor that continues the wayfinding begun in the Chroma District using nylon threads as the guide. …
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Chroma District
May 7-8, 2011Chroma District, an illuminated extension of the Infinite Corridor, conducts visitors to MIT’s main campus with harmonious lanterns and striking colors whose intensities guide the way. …
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IceWall
February, 2011IceWall plants a new future, even as its own seemingly fades away during the Festival of Art, Science and Technology. …
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Inflatables
May 7-8, 2011A network of helium balloons that engages the environment by interacting with occupants and manifesting otherwise invisible environmental forces like the movement of air. …
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aFloat
May 7-8, 2011An interactive installation at the MIT Chapel that produces a pool of flickering lights on the marble platform. …
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Night of Numbers
April-May 2011Night of Numbers is a dynamic lighting installation by Praveen Subramani & Anna Kotova that tells the story of MIT’s past with projected numbers and phrases on buildings around Ames St, bringing renewed vibrancy to an often overlooked entrance to main campus. …
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Gradated Field
May 2011Gradated Field is an inhabitable landscape serving as a connection point between the river and campus that encourages a variety of interactions ranging from meandering by, to sitting, relaxing and lounging against the smooth plaster shapes. …
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Maxwell’s Dream: Painting with Light
May 7-8, 2011An art installation that allows observers to play with a magnetic field to create patterns in light. …
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Bibliodoptera
Feb. - June 2011A cloud of vellum butterflies, seemingly born from the pages of MIT’s libraries, floats above a busy hallway, guiding passers-by. …
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MIT Mood Meter
March - May, 2011MIT Mood Meter is an installation that gathers and aggregates affective information from people around campus in order to estimate the overall mood of MIT during FAST. …
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(now(now(now))): the Infinite Time Capsule
April - May, 2011(now (now (now))): the Infinite Time Capsule nests layers of the past into an image of the present, recursively intertwining slices of time. …
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Otto Piene: SKY Event
May 7, 2011Rising above the Great Dome of MIT, two immense, inflatable stars soared over Killian Court on the evening of May 7 during FAST Light, the culminating event of the MIT150 Festival of Art, Science and Technology. …
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Susanne Seitinger and Pol Pla: LightBridge
May 7-8, 2011LightBridge is a dynamic display symbolic of MIT’s historical and contemporary connections between people and places on both sides of the Charles River. …
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Nick Gelpi: Unflat Pavilion/Feather-Weight House
May 2011An architectural sleight of hand: A pattern cut into flat plywood stock transforms into a three-dimensional, freestanding pavilion. Architectural features appear as flat sheets are bent, unfurling into skylights, columns, buttresses, windows and vents. …
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Joel Lamere + Cynthia Gunadi: Overliner
March - June 2011Origami on a large scale, Overliner highlights the architectural idiosyncrasies of a public space, transforming a familiar and busy passageway into a moment of surprise and repose. …
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Skylar Tibbits: voltaDom
February - May 2011Skylar Tibbits’ voltaDom investigates a new typology of vaulted surfaces in the passageway between buildings 56 and 66. …
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Meejin Yoon: Wind Screen
April - May 2011WIND SCREEN is a temporary installation whose integrated functional and aesthetic properties seek to transform public opinion and public behavior by foregrounding energy use as well as the means of production and consumption. …
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Meejin Yoon: Light Drift
May 7 - 8, 2011LIGHT DRIFT is an interactive lighting installation that will appear along the Memorial Drive side of the Charles River and draw viewers into a playful engagement with the artwork, the river’s edge, and each other. …