The MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) connects the worlds of art, science, and technology by collaborating with departments, labs, and centers across the Institute in four primary areas of activity.
To integrate the arts across the curriculum, CAST supports the development of new classes that reach across disciplines and majors. To enrich and encourage artistic collaborations, CAST looks for unexpected partnerships for visiting artists and seeks to embed residencies in ongoing research and teaching at MIT. To encourage the experimental phase of artistic creation, CAST provides creativity seed funds and research grants for faculty, curators, and postdoctoral associates. To share this creative work and knowledge with the public, CAST produces concerts, symposia, exhibitions, and publications in multiple media platforms.
For more information, contact cast@mit.edu
Evan Ziporyn, Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor; Faculty Director of MIT CAST
Leila W. Kinney, Executive Director of Arts Initiatives and MIT CAST
About CAST
A joint initiative of the Office of the Provost, the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) and the School of the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (SHASS), the Center is funded in part by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Image: Aerocene Test Flights, MIT Killian Court, April 2018. Photo: Sham Sthankiya/MIT.
CAST solicits and supports cross-disciplinary curricular initiatives that integrate the arts into the core curriculum and create new artistic work or materials, media and technologies for artistic expression.
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Image: Material Formations critique, Skylar Tibbits Design Studio, 2015. Photo: L. Barry Hetherington.
The CAST Visiting Artists Program is distinctive for its emphasis on the research and development phase of artistic work. Residencies embed artists in the cutting-edge research and teaching at MIT, where scientists and engineers are open to artists’ speculative and hands-on way of working.
The program hosts artists from a wide range of visual and performing arts disciplines each academic year, exposing students to the creative process and fostering cross-fertilization among disciplines.
Launched in fall of 2016, the Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist position creates the opportunity for artists to shape new creative projects over a period of two years of sustained, in-depth research and development.
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Image: Small Instruments IAP, 2015. Photo: L. Barry Hetherington.
CAST assists in the presentation and curation of performing and visual arts or design relevant to the research of engineers, scientists and the MIT community as a whole.
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Image: Ben Bloomberg SM ’14 runs a live performance system for Jacob Collier, Kresge Auditorium, 2016. Photo: Justin Knight.
The creative and intellectual production supported by the Center is disseminated to the public through performances, exhibitions, installations and a biennial symposium.
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Image: 2017 CAST “Being Material,” Symposium. Bettina Stoetzer moderates the LIVABLE discussion. Photo: L. Barry Hetherington.
CAST supports MIT faculty, graduate students,and postdoctoral researchers whose work advances the mission of the Center.