The Lightweaver, photomontage of a kinetic light installation for the Future Heritage Lab at the refugee camp Al Azraq, Jordan by Azra Aksamija / FHL. Credit: Azra Aksamija, The Lightweaver, 2017.

Future Heritage Lab Devises Creative Responses to Humanitarian Crises

Artistic Collaboration Between MIT, German-Jordanian University and Refugees in the Al Azraq Camp in Jordan Associate Professor Azra Akšamija, Art, Culture & Technology Program, MIT Department of Architecture, first visited the Al Azraq refugee camp in Jordan in 2016. “Once … Continued

Marcus Thompson. Credit: Donna Coveney.

A Recital By Violist Marcus Thompson Is A Chance To Reflect On Progress, Both Personal and Political

A Momentous Day April 4, 1968 was a momentous day for Marcus Thompson. That was the day that the young violist made his debut in a recital at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It also turned out to … Continued

IAP course A Brief History of Kanye will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5pm. Image of Kanye West performing at Lollapalooza on April 3, 2011 in Chile. Credit: Wikimedia/Rodrigo Ferrari.

For Your Edification and Enjoyment: A Guide to Arts IAPs 2018

To counter the prevailing “technology of rationality,” which guides most human behavior and hampers our openness to new experiences, organizations must adopt a “technology of foolishness,” argues behavioral theorist James G. March. This sensible foolishness paves the way for experimentation … Continued

2017 Hacking Arts, "Signature Hack" with CAST Visiting Artist Agnieszka Kurant. Credit: Sharon Lacey.

Collectively Powered Animatronic Fictional Animals, a “Signature Hack”

The Signature Hack At the 2017 Hacking Arts Festival, MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) Visiting Artist Agnieszka Kurant worked with a team of MIT graduate students and researchers to create a “signature hack,” a new feature of … Continued

2017 Hacking Arts. Credit: Blanco Gomez.

Hacking Arts 2017 asks “Why human?”

The 2017 Hacking Arts Festival, which took place at MIT on November 10-12, centered on a timely theme, “Why human?” A surfeit of recent articles report an increasing skepticism about digital technologies among millennials. As retreating into tech-enabled virtual worlds … Continued

Errantry, Werner Pfeiffer. Credit: Courtesy of the artist.

Object Lesson: Werner Pfeiffer’s Errantry

Object Lesson is an ongoing series that highlights some of the art, artifacts, machines, devices, books, instruments and tools that give physical form to ideas that enhance the MIT campus and community.   What is Errantry? Errantry is an artist … Continued

Pedro Reyes, Mexico City–based artist, named the first Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting Artist. Credit: Chris Hind.

In the Making: Pedro Reyes

“My main material is my library. I consider that a very big palette,” says Pedro Reyes, the Mexico City-based artist known for his politically charged participatory and performative installations and multimedia works. “I feed myself materials twice as fast as … Continued

Notes On Blindness, Arnaud Colinart

Hacking VR, 7 ways

Ever since Ivan Sutherland, PhD ’63, developed Ultimate Display in 1965—a forerunner to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) that uses tactile stimuli to mimic the physical world—MIT researchers have been engineering new forms of immersive media. Today, the … Continued

Bryan Czibesz and students observing 3D printer in action. Credit: Jay Pastorello.

Object Lesson: 3D Ceramics Printer

Object Lesson is a new blog series that highlights some of the art, artifacts, machines, devices, books, instruments and tools that give physical form to ideas that enhance the MIT campus and community.   3D CERAMICS PRINTER What is a … Continued

Active Matter, Published September 2017 by MIT Press.

Excerpt from Active Matter by Skylar Tibbits

Active Matter (MIT Press 2017), edited by Skylar Tibbits, Assistant Professor of Design Research in the Department of Architecture at MIT and the Founder and Codirector of MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab, is an essential guide to a field that could shape … Continued

A Tribute to Lou Harrison Honors His Love Affair with Javanese Music

Lou Harrison The great American composer Lou Harrison tried his hand at many things: painting, calligraphy and poetry, to name but a few. He went through a great many musical phases as well, inspired by the experimental work of both … Continued

DESIGN EARTH, "Planetarium for the Anthropocene," 2017. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

Q&A with Rania Ghosn

Suspend disgust at the thought of trash; make it a compelling subject for designers and the broader public. That’s Rania Ghosn’s tactic for getting more people to improve our built environment and ask the necessary questions about landfills, oil rigs, … Continued

Vision in Neuroscience and Art. Students conduct visual experiments. Credit: Seth Riskin.

Q&A with Seth Riskin

Seth Riskin, SM ’89, came to MIT in 1986 to coach the women’s gymnastics team, before applying to the graduate program in Visual Studies at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), then under the direction of German artist Otto … Continued

MIT Museum Presents North American Premiere of Groundbreaking Virtual Reality Experience The Enemy by Visiting Artist Karim Ben Khelifa.

CAST Announces 2017-18 Visiting Artists in Visual and Computational Arts

The MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) is pleased to announce the 2017-18 Visiting Artists in visual and computational arts: Pedro Reyes, B. Stephen Carpenter II, Agnieszka Kurant, Diemut Strebe, Karim Ben Khelifa, Newton Harrison, Jason Levine and … Continued

Lou Harrison. Courtesy of the artist.

MIT’s Sounding Concert Series Is All About Coming Together

This fall sees the return of the MIT Sounding series—and, as usual, a penchant for border crossings and experimentation. The season kicks off on October 12 with a tribute concert to the influential composer Lou Harrison, who would have turned 100 … Continued

MIT Theater Arts: The Next Act

A performing arts building ushers in a new era of theater at the Institute In 1597, when the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s lease expired on their theater building in Shoreditch, then still a suburb of the City of London, the company … Continued

"Listening to the City" at Urbano Mobile. Photo: Courtesy of MIT CoLab.

“Listening to the City”: Amplifying voices, shaping sonic infrastructure

Listening is an undervalued act in our civic sphere, where the squeaky wheel routinely gets the grease. But MIT’s Community Innovators Lab (CoLab), a center for planning and development within the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), is … Continued

The Livable panel, (from left) Bettina Stoezer, Bill Maurer, Tal Danino, Claire Pentecost, and Rebecca Uchill (co-convener of the symposium). Credit: L. Barry Hetherington.

CAST’S “BEING MATERIAL” SYMPOSIUM HIGHLIGHTS THE CONVERGENCE OF BITS AND ATOMS

Twenty-two years ago Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab co-founder, predicted that “being digital” would lead to a future with fewer material constraints. “Being Material,” the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology’s second biennial international symposium, used Negroponte’s Being Digital … Continued

Garrett Parrish '17, 2017 Sudler Prize winner. Photo: courtesy of Garrett Parrish.

Garrett Parrish receives the 2017 Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts

Robotics and Jazz “In high school I was always flying to robotics tournaments and then to jazz festivals in the same day,” says Garrett Parrish, the 2017 recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts. Over time, his engineering … Continued

Ani Liu, "Mind Controlled Spermatozoa"

2017 Winners of the Schnitzer Prize in the Visual Arts

The Schnitzer Prize was established in 1996 through an endowment from Harold and Arlene Schnitzer of Portland, Oregon. Harold Schnitzer, a real estate investor, graduated from MIT in 1944 with a degree in metallurgy. The prizes—a first prize of $5000, … Continued

Jake Gunter's lighting design for 'Small Infinities.' Isaac Newton in the foreground, played by Ben Spiro '17, and Hannah Smith, Newton’s mother is in the background, played by Sabrine Iqbal '17. Photo: Jake Gunter.

2017 Recipients of the Wiesner Student Art Awards

There is common misconception that all MIT students prioritize psets over practicing piano, performing Shakespeare, drawing, painting, dancing or designing lighting cues. The 2017 recipients of the Wiesner Student Art Awards—Jacob Gunter, Nathan Gutierrez, Rachel Osmundsen and Hallie Voulgaris—counter this … Continued

Graduate Arts Soirée, 2017. Photo: Joseph Lee.

2017 Graduate Arts Soirée

The MIT Grad Arts Forum, a group that encourages artistic collaboration and intellectual discussions among MIT graduate students from different departments, invited the greater Boston community to the 8th Annual Graduate Arts Soirée on March 25, 2017. This event was … Continued

Roots Studio, 2017 Winner of the Creative Arts Competition. Authentic designs by artists in India are transformed into storied products. Photo: Courtesy of Roots Studio.

Creative Arts Competition rewards arts entrepreneurship at MIT

On May 1, MIT’s yearlong suite of opportunities for student arts entrepreneurs culminated in the fifth annual Creative Arts Competition, a $15,000 prize for the most promising arts-focused startup at the Institute. Eight teams, comprised of undergraduate and graduate students … Continued

Guillermo E. Brown. Bee Boy, directed by Charlotte Brathwaite, MIT 2017. Credit: Dekoit Pictures.

Bee Boy uplifts in the face of inequity’s sting

The word Ba, represented by a bee-sign in hieroglyphs, meant ‘soul,’ ‘honey’ and ‘bee’ to Ancient Egyptians. This ancient commingling of our fate with bees isn’t lost on MIT assistant professor of theater arts Charlotte Brathwaite, whose new project Bee … Continued

WEARABLE Panelist Hussein Chalayan’s Autumn/Winter Collection, 2007.

Leila Kinney Discusses “Being Material”

MIT’s Nicholas Negroponte predicted in 1995 that “being digital” would have us entering a realm increasingly unconstrained by the materiality of the world. Two decades later, our everyday lives are indeed ever more suffused by computation and calculation. But unwieldy … Continued