Center For Art Science & Technology (CAST) Articles

Beam of colored light
The live concert of Spider’s Canvas / Arachnodrone is a co-creation of composer and MIT CAST Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn, composer/visual artist Christine Southworth ’02, sound artist Ian Hattwick, spider researcher Isabelle Su, in collaboration with artist Tomás Saraceno, whose originating idea provides the basis of the concert, and MIT Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department Head and McAfee Professor Markus Buehler. Credit: Aurelie Cenno.

Consider the Spiderweb

After nearly a decade, an interdisciplinary collaboration to model a 3D spider web leads to many surprising results The spiderweb is an everyday architecture—unmonumental and easily overlooked. Yet artists and scientists are working to unlock the secret of its complex … Continued

People walking in large room with headsets
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

Johnny Gandelsman performs for the first annual Terry and Rick Stone Concert in MIT’s Kresge Auditorium on October 30, 2015. Credit: L. Barry Hetherington.

BACH: THE SIX SUITES FOR SOLO CELLO (for solo violin)

JS Bach: Complete Cello Suites Johnny Gandelsman, violin February 8, 2020 / 7:00pm Kresge Auditorium, MIT Building W16 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA Reserve a seat Following up on his celebrated debut recording of JS Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, Grammy award-winning … Continued

As part of MIT Sounding, Haitian rapper, poet and singer BIC performs his work in collaboration with Jean Appolon Expressions, a Cambridge-based Haitian contemporary dance company. Photo by Caroline Alden.

Performer BIC Shares the Joy of Music and Poetry to Promote Social Equity

The Haitian poet and rapper discusses the rich outcomes of a week-long residency at MIT. Can art, poetry and music generate social change? That question was  enthusiastically explored this April during a visiting artist residency with Haitian poet and rapper … Continued

PhD student Sarah Schwettmann explains how the study of visual perception can translate students’ creativity across domains.

3 Questions: Sarah Schwettmann on the interface between art and neuroscience

The MIT PhD student explains how the study of visual perception can translate students’ creativity across domains. Computational neuroscientist Sarah Schwettmann is one of three instructors behind the cross-disciplinary course 9.S52/9.S916 Vision in Art and Neuroscience, which introduces students to … Continued

Image: Playwright and MIT Senior Lecturer Ken Urban's The Immortals. Credit Melissa Blackall.
Playwright and MIT Senior Lecturer Ken Urban's The Immortals, recipient of a CAST Fay Chandler Faculty Creativity Grant, is a work in progress by playwright Ken Urban, draws from the strange and troubling case of Henrietta Lacks. Credit Melissa Blackall.

Observations from The Immortals workshop at MIT

Students share their experiences from a workshop with theater professionals Director Logan Vaughn, dramaturg Ignacia Delgado, and actors Heather Alicia Simms, Eddie Kaye Thomas, Naomi Jacobson, and Jordan Geiger came together at MIT to work with Ken Urban, Senior Lecturer … Continued

Artist standing in front of a large wall painting.
Matthew Ritchie at the ICA, where the British-born, New York-based artist had an 18-month residency. Credit: Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe.

An Artist Inquires into the Computational Substrate at MIT

Matthew Ritchie researches technology’s growing scope as CAST visiting artist. Matthew Ritchie is no stranger to the MIT campus. The contemporary artist, who works in installation, performance, painting, drawing, sculpture and sound, created a site-specific installation at the Zesiger Center … Continued