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The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, MIT W97 Theater Building. Photo: Sham Sthinkya.

Comedy Meets Math in A New Opera at MIT

A new opera by MIT music lecturer Elena Ruehr turns the real-life inventors of modern computing into crime-fighters   Over the course of her career, the composer Elena Ruehr has found inspiration in very different writers and very different worlds: … Continued

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The Art World’s Amazing Spider Man

Tomás Saraceno’s creations, including those on view at a new exhibition at the Shed, lie at the intersection of sculpture, ecology and futuristic experimentation.

Feb. 7, 2022
A dopamine still from Jenna Sutela and Markus Buehler's wet-on-wet image.
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

Jacob Collier's newest album "DJESSE Vol. 1" is the follow up recording to the 2017 double Grammy-winning "In My Room."

A Jazz Wunderkind, A Haitian Pop Star and Spider Webs at MIT Sounding Series

Album Release Celebration: Djesse Volume 1 What do a jazz wunderkind, a Haitian pop star and spider webs all have in common? They’ll all be making appearances throughout the MIT Sounding Series 2018-19 season. The series kicks off with a familiar … Continued

Pedro Reyes, Manufacturing Myschief,Noam Chomsky. Credit: HErickson/MIT.
Pedro Reyes, Manufacturing Myschief,Noam Chomsky. Credit: HErickson/MIT.

Object Lesson: Noam Chomsky Puppet

Object Lesson is an ongoing 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. What is the Noam Chomsky puppet? This … Continued

Photo of man interacting with floating sculptures from the Aerocene Project
Aerocene. Credit: KHigginsMIT

MIT Arts Events at the 2018 Cambridge Science Festival

Every spring, the Cambridge Science Festival (CSF) makes science accessible, engaging and fun for everyone through multifaceted, multicultural events. In spring 2018, Arts at MIT created a list of of CSF events that taking place on the MIT campus. We … Continued

2017 Hacking Arts, "Signature Hack" with CAST Visiting Artist Agnieszka Kurant. Shown here are two real animals and two fictional animals. Credit: Adam Harr Horowitz.
Agnieszka Kurant, Hacking Arts *Signature Hack*, 2017. Credit: Adam Harr Horowitz.

Behind the Artwork: Adam Haar Horowitz on The Animal Internet

Adam Haar Horowitz, together with Agnes Cameron, Ishaan Grover, Tim Robertson, Owen Trueblood and Gary Zhang, worked with CAST Visiting Artist Agnieszka Kurant at the 2017 Hacking Arts Festival on a “signature hack,” a new feature of the festival that … Continued

(Clockwise, from top left) Clarinetists Don Byron, Billy Novick, Eran Egozy and Evan Ziporyn.

The Great Clarinet Summit Shines A Light On An Oft-Overlooked Instrument

The Clarinet The clarinet is not generally considered the most heroic of instruments. In classical music, that honor belongs to the violin. In jazz, it’s the saxophone; in rock, the guitar. But the clarinet, a single reed woodwind that is … Continued

Jason Levine livecoding at an Algorave. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
Jason Levine livecoding at an Algorave. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

‘The Instrument is Code:’ Jason Levine Brings Musical Live Coding To MIT

It’s not uncommon, in this day and age, to go to a concert and spot a performer hunched behind a laptop. Head bobbing and fingers flying, she may be doing any number of things: DJing, remixing, playing live backing tracks. … Continued

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

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

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

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

Guillermo E. Brown. Bee Boy. Photo: Dekoit Pictures.
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

Grace Leslie. Courtesy of the artist.
Grace Leslie. Courtesy of the artist.

Evan Ziporyn 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

Luciana Souza and Guillermo Klein. Image credit: Souza (left) by Kim Fox and Klein (right) courtesy of the artist.
Luciana Souza and Guillermo Klein. Image credit: Souza (left) by Kim Fox and Klein (right). Photo: Courtesy of the artists.

With “Works on Hope,” Latin Jazz Luminaries Guillermo Klein and Luciana Souza Invite MIT Into Their Tribe

Back in the mid-90s, the Brazilian-born singer Luciana Souza, who was living in Boston at the time, would sometimes drive down to New York to sit in on a Monday night session at the legendary Smalls Jazz Club in Greenwich … Continued

Maya Beiser performs cello on stage.
Maya Beiser performs "Uncovered" during the 2015-16 MIT Sounding Series. Credit: Justin Knight.

Evan Ziporyn’s ‘Ambient Orchestra’ Honors Bowie With Blackstar Concert

PUBLIC PERFORMANCE Maya Beiser and the Ambient Orchestra perform David Bowie’s Blackstar March 3, 2017 / 7:30pm MIT Kresge Auditorium, W16 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA   It has been just over a year since the news of David Bowie’s … Continued

Protein 13 (Postscript 2013) - The Power Plant. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
Protein 13 (Postscript 2013) - The Power Plant. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

Poetry to survive the end of civilization

The recent spike in sales of George Orwell’s 1984, which hit No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list last week, says something about our dystopian times. If the future gets bleaker, we’ll need literature that not only records civilization’s collapse, but … Continued

Going Off-Road with Mugaritz to Explore Creativity

Creativity according to Mugaritz and MIT “When you take the off-road and not the well-traveled road, it is much more painful, but it is exciting and it is worth it, even knowing that I am going to fail by trying … Continued

Nik Bärtsch's Mobile: Modul 8_11 live at EXIL, 2014. Credit: SRF, Swiss Television.

Minimalism Meets Funk In Nik Bärtsch’s MOBILE Ensemble

When he was young, the Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bärtsch was obsessed with rhythm. Once, when his father brought him along to a party, he spent the whole evening drumming on an ashtray. Nowadays he is apt to reach … Continued

"Hajanga," is the fourth and final single from Collier's debut album, 'In My Room'.

Behind the Artwork: Ben Bloomberg Creates Live Performance Systems for Virtuoso Multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier

CAST Visiting Artist Jacob Collier is well known for his YouTube videos, which the 22-year-old musical phenom performs and produces in his bedroom in North London. Collier’s work has garnered praise from such jazz icons as Herbie Hancock and Quincy … Continued

"Don't You Know," an original song from Jacob's debut album 'In My Room'.
"Don't You Know," an original song from Jacob Collier's debut album 'In My Room'. Photo: courtesy of the artist.

Jazz Prodigy Jacob Collier Infuses Technology with Humanity at MIT

Explosively rhythmic music Jacob Collier is not like other YouTube stars. The English 22-year-old rose to fame with inventive video covers of popular songs like Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.” and Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” the arrangements rendered in dizzying multiplicity … Continued

Sumie Kaneko. Courtesy of the artist.
Sumie Kaneko. Photo: Courtesy of the artist.

Sumie Kaneko and Gamelan Galak Tika Connect Japan, Bali and the Avant-Garde for MIT’s World Music Day

Sumie Kaneko, an Omnivourous Musician When the Japanese koto and shamisen player Sumie Kaneko was invited to perform with Gamelan Galak Tika for MIT’s World Music Day, she was elated. Kaneko—who holds a degree in traditional Japanese music from Tokyo … Continued

Photograph taken during the creation of Karim Ben Khelifa's The Enemy

Face to Face with The Enemy

Novel Technology When the Lumière brothers screened their 1895 film, The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat—so the famous anecdote goes—audiences frightened by the verisimilitude of the image screamed and got out of the way. As we enter a … Continued

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