EDITORIAL DIRECTOR
Leah Talatinian
Senior Officer for Marketing and Communications
Composer Nina C. Young is equally at ease drawing from Renaissance motets and 21st-century technology to devise her sonic architectures. When she was a senior at MIT, Nina C. Young ’07 took Michael (1949) and Sonja Koerner Music Composition Professor … Continued
In a new video art piece, MIT alum Rae Yuping Hsu counters traditional narratives of colonization In late May, 20,000 feet above Pease, New Hampshire, a woman dressed as a microbe in a spacesuit inoculated with slime mold bounced around … Continued
After nearly a decade, an interdisciplinary collaboration to model a 3D spider web leads to many surprising results The spiderweb is an everyday architecture—unmonumental and easily overlooked. Yet artists and scientists are working to unlock the secret of its complex … Continued
Visit the online exhibition of work by the 2021 recipients of the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts. Po-Hao Chi, Chucho Ocampo, Carolyn Tam, and Nina Lutz Artists have always found their subjects and techniques in the world where … Continued
Music, electrical engineering, and computer science Sebastian Franjou ’21 began studying classical guitar and music theory in his native France, but he chose the United States for his university education so that he could double major—ultimately choosing to pair music … Continued
Kevin Costello, Rian Flynn, Gabriel “Tony” Terrasa, and Luisa Apolaya Torres Each year, the Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards, which were created in 1979, acknowledge four undergraduate or graduate students, living groups, organizations or activities for their … Continued
This year’s biannual CAST symposium explores the art and science of computation In the popular imagination, artificial intelligence is either a salve or a menace: a bright panacea to optimize our brains and solve all our problems, or a cold … Continued
A new online exhibit and film explore iterative and generative processes In 1975, artist Sol Lewitt created a list of instructions for drawing red, yellow, and blue lines on a wall. A piece of conceptual art, the wall could be … Continued
There are myriad opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs at MIT—dozens of incubators and accelerators designed to help shepherd the next big thing in robotics or biotech or quantum computing from blackboard to business. Students wishing to launch a venture in the … Continued
Photography gives graduate student Elaheh Ahmadi a new means of connection, self-expression Taking 4.341 Introduction to Photography and Related Media at MIT was a life-changing experience for Elaheh Ahmadi SB ’20, MEng ’21. It was the fall of 2019, and … Continued
A new art-science collaboration uses molecular structures as creative medium In MIT CAST Visiting Artist Jenna Sutela’s work, which ranges from computational poetry to experimental music to installations and performance, she enlists microbes and neural networks as co-creators. “I want … Continued
In a new online project, MIT alum Nancy Valladares finds phantoms in Honduras’s horticultural past In 1932, the British botanist Dorothy Popenoe died after eating a piece of unripe ackee fruit. The fruit, which originated in West Africa, was grown … Continued
For Dr. Daniel Chonde, art, science, and health don’t just enrich each other — they are inextricably intertwined One of the most consequential lessons Dr. Daniel Chonde (SB ’07, PhD ‘15), a third-year resident in radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, … Continued
Finding Connection in Isolation Through Design How can we be together? This is the question that designer Thomas Heatherwick asks. The winner of the 2020 Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts at MIT, renowned for his large-scale public projects around the … Continued
When MArch’20 graduates Dalma Földesi and Jung In Seo first started taking ceramics classes at MIT’s Student Art Association (SAA), they found a fascinatingly protean substance. Clay could be liquid or solid, heavy and dense or feather-light. Before it hardens, … Continued
In the late days of January in 2020, Matthew Ritchie staged a beta version of his VR game, The Invisible College, in the U-shaped atrium of MIT’s Physics building, a former century-old courtyard. On the bright grid-like floor designed by … Continued
Going online expanded the Lab’s access to theater professionals, giving students and recent alumni a chance to learn new skills, refine their plays — and work with high-caliber actors and directors When Covid-19 forced the MIT campus to shut down … Continued
In June 2020, the Media Lab and Google Arts & Culture Lab came together for Open Lab: Home Sprint, a 48-hour creative exchange between more than 40 artists and creative technologists. Although many of the participants, who came from 11 countries and … Continued
Visit the online exhibition of work by the 2020 recipients of the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts. Students Plumb Barriers of Sound, Space, and Sight at MIT Each year, the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize highlights student … Continued
MIT is host to a vibrant and delightfully diverse art scene. Much of the credit goes to the students who participate in the arts on campus. Scores of students work each year in seen and unseen roles, promoting and sustaining … Continued
Venkatesh Sivaraman ’20 On March 30, 2020 at 5p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Venkatesh Sivaraman ’20 (Computational Biology) sat down at the five-foot Yamaha grand piano in his family’s Columbus, Ohio home and launched into the first notes of Alexander Scriabin’s … Continued
The MIT Music and Theater Arts Playwrights Lab workshop 21M.785J taught by Senior Lecturer Ken Urban provides students a space to work on the development of play scripts for the theater and the opportunity to collaborate with professional theater artists. … Continued
The video opens under an expanse of murky green water, as two swimmers clasp each other and slowly pinwheel in place to the somber notes of a piano sonata. A voiceover says, “The world record for human breath-hold underwater is … Continued
“Be stubborn and ultimately believe in your writing,” advises first-time novelist Mia Heavener ’00, “especially if you are having crappy writing days.” On April 13, Heavener visited Wyn Kelley’s literature course “Reading Fiction: Voyages” to share her story of writing … Continued
Thom Kubli and Hiroshi Ishii on 3D Printing Floating Sculptures Speculative Machines In Thom Kubli’s “Black Hole Horizon,” a stream of bubbles slides out of a series of three large black horns. With the vibration of the horns churning liquid … Continued
