Alumni Archives - Arts at MIT

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ReWildAR, augmented reality installation, Tamiko Thiel and /p, 2021. Commissioned by Ashley Molese for the 175th anniversary FUTURES exhibit of the Smithsonian Institution, at the Arts and Industry Building.

Unveiling the Invisible

The digital artworks of Tamiko Thiel ’83 expand perception of our immediate environment Imagine walking in an urban setting, conjuring a spontaneous rewilding of the world around you; metro stations are dominated by native species, exotic invasives self-seed in … Continued

Portrait of a woman in front of a blurry street

Image courtesy the artist

Beyza Boyacioglu ‘16 and the “Zeki Müren Hotline”

An unconventional format for her documentary about an unconventional pop star The Turkish songwriter, poet and performer Zeki Müren (1931-1996) was an idiosyncratic star, to say the least. A flamboyant fashion plate partial to platform boots, tight lamé outfits, … Continued

Image credit: Danny Goldfield

Srinivasan Raghuraman gets a long-awaited moment in the spotlight

The PhD alum, who works as a research scientist at Visa Research, performed his Emerson/Harris solo recital after a two-year delay. Srinivasan Raghuraman SM ’17, PhD ’20 was in the lab after hours during his first year at MIT when … Continued

Image courtesy of artist

Emma Yimeng Zhu 朱艺蒙 (SMACT ’21) Brings Ideas to Life

Artist and architect Emma Yimeng Zhu 朱艺蒙 is challenging us to reimagine our world. Emma Yimeng Zhu 朱艺蒙 (SMACT ’21) is fascinated by lines. By the boundaries they form, by the blurring of them, and by how we might … Continued

Nina Young smiling and looking up at the stage light.

Nina Young, image courtesy EMPAC

Composer Nina C. Young’s Sonic Architectures

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

Man presents in front of a screen with an image of the brain

Joshua Sariñana MIT PhD '11. Trinity College Dublin Neurohumanities Lecture Series.

Joshua Sariñana (PhD ‘11) Believes in The Poetry of Science

Joshua Sariñana hopes that combining science, poetry, and photography can create new avenues for understanding and advocating for social justice. Joshua Sariñana (PhD ‘11) has always asked big questions. “I wanted to understand consciousness,” Sariñana says of studying neuroscience … Continued

The "first contact" moment of the performance. Pease NH, May 20, 2021. Photo courtesy of Steve Boxall/Zero-G.

Rethinking Our First Encounters in Space

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

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

Daniel Chonde smiles directly at the camera while wearing a colorful bowtie and suit jacket.

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

A gallery room with two low pedistals , one with a robotic arm and the other with ceramic bricks.

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

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

Image: Mia Heavener. Courtesy of the artist.

A Writer’s Voyage: Mia Heavener, MIT Course 1, ’00

“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

Devi Lockwood SM '19. Courtesy of Devi Lockwood.

Beside Still Waters: Devi Lockwood SM ‘19

Devi Lockwood was wandering down the Infinite Corridor in the Fall of 2018 when she noticed a sheaf of brochures perched on the door of a small office to her left. The brochures had information about grants awarded by the … Continued

Being Material, MIT Press, 2019. Credit: HErickson/MIT CAST.

Being Material, an Introduction

By Marie-Pier Boucher, Stefan Helmreich, Leila W. Kinney, Skylar Tibbits, Rebecca Uchill, and Evan Ziporyn The following excerpt is from the publication Being Material (2019 MIT Press). At the intersection of art, science, and technology, the book Being Material … Continued

Image: Artist Jorge Otero-Pailos. Credit: Paula Lobo.

Jorge Otero-Pailos ‘02 Connects Art and Architecture in Surprising Ways

The international artist attributes his diverse career to MIT’s open culture. Jorge Otero-Pailos ’02 attributes his unique artistic vision to his experience at MIT, where he earned a PhD in History and Theory of Architecture at the MIT School of … Continued

Image: Ray Zepeda. Courtesy of Ray Zepeda.

Ray Zepeda ‘88 Recalls his Rich Musical Mentors at MIT

The mechanical engineering graduate followed his muse as musician and composer. The roads to MIT are many and circuitous. For Ray Zepeda ‘88, the route was straight east. A lifelong Californian, Zepeda’s cross-country trip was motivated by dual interests. “Studying … Continued

Flocks. Credit LNichols.

Transforming a Rough Childhood in Rural Louisiana into a Graphic Novel

L. Nichols will present a reading of his new work “Flocks,”  an autobiographical graphic novel, on Tuesday, November 27, 2018 from 5:00-6:15pm in the MIT Wiesner Student Art Gallery. The reading will include an introduction by Stephen Tapscott, Professor, Literature and … Continued

2017 $15K Creative Arts Competition Workshop. Credit Lenny Martinez.

In Good Company: MIT Alumni in Creative Industries

Bose, BuzzFeed, E*Trade, Gillette, Huffington Post, Texas Instruments, Zipcar—those are just a few familiar companies founded by MIT alumni. With MIT’s “lab to market” ethos, it may come as no surprise that thousands of alumni have turned their research findings … Continued

Sarah Hulsey's studio. Photo: Sharon Lacey.

Sarah Hulsey, Picturing Language

Language is the defining trait of being human, yet a deep knowledge of how it works did not develop until the 20th century. Pioneering linguists like Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle, MIT Institute Professors emeriti, were instrumental in the development … 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

'Mytho? Lure of Wildness,' 2016. Photo: Paula Court.

Actor-Director-Physicist Adam Strandberg

Adam Strandberg graduated from MIT in 2014 with a degree in physics. While a student, he was in 20 theatrical productions, from David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow to Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. He received the Wiesner Student … Continued

Small colorful illuminated cubes are arranged to spell "MIT."

Arts Alumni News

Amna Ansari ’12 and Marcus Martinez ’12, co-founders of Alloybuild, won an Honorable Mention/‘Best Unique City Infrastructure’ for their entry ‘Float House’ at reGEN Boston; they also presented their research ‘Shuffle City’ at the Architecture Boston Expo in November. Ann … Continued

Aerial view of a soccer field painted with an image of a soccer ball.

Vik Muniz, This is Not a Ball, 2014. Credit: VAGA, New York.

This is Not a Ball: New Doc by Visiting Artist Vik Muniz Features MIT Alums

MIT alumni and researchers are spotlighted in Visiting Artist Vik Muniz’s documentary, “This is Not a Ball,” coinciding with the 2014 World Cup.

A person on a balcony looks at a large reflective sculpture made of many squares of glass.

Jeff Lieberman, Patterned by Nature (Screen Shot)

Patterned by Nature: Kinetic Art by MIT Alum Jeff Lieberman

How does a gigantic glass LCD display represent nature? The 90-foot long “ribbon” that slices through the atrium of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences shows animated patterns inspired by nature, from flying birds to clouds floating across the sky.

Titled “Patterned by Nature,” the sculpture is an impressive crossover between engineering, art, and the natural world. Its creator, Jeff Lieberman ’00, SM ’04, SM ’06, has been studying the intersection of art and science for years and “Patterned by Nature” is the perfect manifestation of this belief.

News, interviews, and stories about the arts at MIT