Image: Courtesy of Nancy Valladares, SMACT ’20.
Council for the Arts at MIT Supports Graduate Student Artistic Research
Graduate students and alumni discuss their work at the Council’s Annual Meeting
News, interviews, and stories about the arts at MIT
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Rendering of "Lodgers: Serendipity in the Wilderness" by Zhicheng Xu and Mengqi Moon He.
Council for the Arts at MIT Announces Spring 2021 Grant Recipients
The Council for the Arts at MIT provides funding for arts projects with a special interest in supporting projects that engage the MIT community. The Council’s Grants Committee considers proposals for projects in the fall and spring semesters. Applications for Undergraduate Mini-Grants are accepted on a … Continued
Po-Hao Chi, Virtual Confinement. Courtesy of the artist.
The 2021 Schnitzer Prize: Art For and From Our World
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
Image: 2021 Sudler Prize recipient Sebastian Franjou. Credit: Amelia Paine.
Sebastian Franjou ’21: Louis Sudler Prize Winner
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
Image: Kevin Costello. Courtesy of the artist.
Thriving in the Arts at MIT: The 2021 Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards
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
2021 CAST Symposium "Unfolding Intelligence"
Unfolding Intelligence
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
Agnieszka Kurant, A.A.I 8, 2015, termite mounds made from colored sand, gold, glitter, and crystals, 63.5 × 66 cm. Courtesy of the artist.
The Never-ending Artwork
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
Anj Fayemi, ’20 Chemical Engineering, member of Rivet team, winner of the 2021 $15K Creative Arts Competition, accepting prize.
Making the Arts Sustainable: The $15K Creative Arts Competition
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
Trapped, credit Elaheh Ahmadi.
Opening a Trapped Door
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
Jenna Sutela and Markus Buehler, film still from Wet-on-Wet, 2021.
Finding the Love Hormone in a Stressed Out World
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
Botanical Ghosts. Credit Nancy Valladares.
How to Talk to Ghosts
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
Image: Daniel Chonde. Courtesy of the Martinos Center Researcher.
Daniel Chonde SB ’07, PhD ‘15
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
Thomas Heatherwick. Credit: Elena Heatherwick.
Thomas Heatherwick, 2020 Winner of the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts
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
2020 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts First Place Winner Nicole L'Huillier's Delira, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Council for the Arts at MIT Announces IAP 2021 Arts Funding Opportunities for Undergrads and Student Groups
The Council for the Arts at MIT will offer two art funding opportunities for IAP 2021 focused on undergraduates and student groups. Special IAP Arts Funding for Undergraduates and Student Groups This one-time special funding opportunity will provide up to … Continued
Screenshot of Misalignments online exhibition. Credit: Dalma Földesi and Jung In Seo.
Misalignments
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
As the 2018–20 Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist, Matthew Ritchie creates a new transmedia work in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of MIT artists, faculty, and students. This new collaborative work takes inspiration from the “invisible college” of MIT: the interactions, discussions, and thought processes that take place outside of the formal classroom and administrative structure of the Institute.
The Invisible College
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
Image: Virtual Playwrights Lab 2020. Courtesy of Ken Urban.
The MTA Playwrights Lab turned a hurdle into a unique opportunity for its students and recent alumni
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
Image: Courtesy of artist Ben Cullen Williams in collaboration with Adam Haar Horowitz + Guadalupe Babio.
Open Lab: Home Sprint with Google Arts & Culture
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
2020 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts First Place Winner Nicole L'Huillier's Delira, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
The 2020 Harold and Arlene Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts
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
Image: Margaret Kosten. Courtesy of the artist.
Making Arts Matter: The 2020 Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Award
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
Image: Sudler Award recipient Venkatesh Sivaraman. Courtesy of the artist.
At Home in Music: 2020 Louis Sudler Prize Winner Venkatesh Sivaraman
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
Ken Urban. Credit Kevin Thomas Garcia.
Reflections on a now virtual Playwrights Lab Workshop
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
Toward a Transhumanist Future: Miriam Simun, Media Lab ’18
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
Maria Esteban Casanas, winner of the 2020 $15K Creative Arts Competition.
The Entrepreneurship of Art: MIT’s 2020 15k Arts Competition
Eight years ago, MIT launched a novel competition designed to foster arts-focused startups at the Institute. “There were a number of arts prizes awarded at semester’s or year’s end,” says Leila W. Kinney, Executive Director of Arts Initiatives at MIT. … Continued
Image: Dance Revelasian at the Taoli World Boston Regional Competition. November 2019. Credit: Benjamin Cheung Photography.
The Joy of Dance at MIT
Nothing can stop MIT students from dancing, not even stay at home orders. Two years ago, when second-year EECS & Economics student Joy (Xingchen) Feng was deciding where to attend college, she was concerned about having artistic outlets beyond class. … Continued