When Vinzenz Aubry (SMACT ’25) joined the Program in Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) at MIT, he wasn’t looking for a traditional MFA. “ACT is for people who don’t want to do an MFA,” he muses, speaking to ACT’s Marissa Friedman from his home in Berlin, Germany. “And since I already went to art school and I’m interested in technology, it made sense.” His discovery of the program came via ACT’s predecessor, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS), revealing a surprising (to some) intersection between rigorous theory and experimental practice.
Aubry, who trained in European art schools where learning happens by “just spending a lot of time in the studio,” came to ACT with a strong hands-on practice and a desire to deepen his conceptual grounding. “I never got around to doing a lot of theory,” he admits, “and maybe that’s just me. But the most important part for me during ACT was catching up with theory.”
Being a graduate student at MIT also allowed Aubry to take advantage of courses at other local institutions. “It was also amazing to be able to take classes at Harvard. These institutions have this mythical reputation—you hear about MIT and Harvard in the news as centers of academic excellence. But experiencing them firsthand, I discovered that they’re also places where people gather to think and learn together. There’s something refreshing about discovering that these institutions, for all their reputation, are fundamentally communities of curious people, and I felt very welcomed.”
Being a graduate student at MIT also allowed Aubry to take advantage of courses at other local institutions. “It was also amazing to be able to take classes at Harvard. These institutions have this mythical reputation—you hear about MIT and Harvard in the news as centers of academic excellence. But experiencing them firsthand, I discovered that they’re above all places where people gather to think and learn together. There’s something refreshing about discovering that these institutions are really just communities of curious people, and I felt very welcomed.”
The international perspective at ACT also catalyzed a broader awareness of the art world’s systems and cultural infrastructures. “Coming to the US teaches some kind of internationalization,” Aubry explains. “In Berlin, we weren’t looking left or right. I had no idea what other people were doing. At ACT, I learned that to thrive in this environment, you need to be aware of the landscape—how systems work, how different centers for culture operate, and always stay critical towards your own environment.”
That professionalization translated into artistic output as well. “Without even planning to, I added a lot of projects to my portfolio. I felt I was doing mostly theory, but it turned out to be quite productive in terms of artworks.”
Indeed, Aubry’s tenure at MIT was unusually prolific. His works ranged from tactile sculpture to land art and experimental film, even a Sky Art Symposium in 2024, united by a desire to explore ephemeral, non-object-based forms of engagement.
Sky Art is a term coined by former CAVS Director Otto Piene to describe projects using the sky and space as a canvas and/or medium. The 2024 symposium, helmed by Aubry, was also a continuation of a tradition of Sky Art symposia in the 1980s from Piene’s tenure as CAVS Director. CAVS Fellows and artists Keiko Prince, Joe Davis, and Rus Gant all attended the 2024 symposium.
One standout work, Looking at the Sun, reimagines cinema as a physiological phenomenon. “I discovered you could draw directly on the retina,” he says. “So instead of drawing on a canvas, I draw directly onto the eye using flash imagery that unfolds as afterimages. The film essentially plays inside the audience’s visual field. While I see art as a collective experience, this piece starts by exploring inner sensory resonances with the world.”
In another project, Vibrations for Androids, Aubry used subsonic frequencies to sculpt with vibrations rather than sight or sound. Inspired by seismology and resonance research, the piece emits vibrations below 20 Hz—imperceptible to the ear but deeply felt. “I wanted to make a sculpture that is neither visible nor audible,” he says, “but only tactile.”
Aubry’s desire to challenge traditional modes of presentation (and representation) culminated in a project that could only have emerged from this unique convergence of theory and media: a nearly two-hour-long TikTok adaptation of his thesis. “Everyone is very busy, so you can’t expect people to read everything,” he shrugs. “So, to go with the new economy of attention, I made a TikTok version using AI text-to-speech, classic TikTok music, and visuals—the first full MIT thesis published as a TikTok.”
At the core of his thesis, titled Allopoetics in Real Time, is a concept he calls “collective unfolding.” Inspired by literary reader-response theory, Aubry applied it to art. “I realized I’m very drawn to what Umberto Eco calls the ‘Open Work’,” he explains. “I’m interested in meaning emerging in relations between artwork, publics, space, and time.
His use of “allopoesis,” a term borrowed from biology meaning something that creates something else, underscores this notion. “My artworks don’t exist in themselves—they generate something beyond themselves. They are incomplete without resonance.”
This led Aubry to identify what he believes is a broader cultural shift. “We’re living through what I see as an ‘experiential turn,’” he says and wonders: “If AI can generate any image imaginable, doesn’t the value of our precious images collapse? What to me seems to become important is less the image, but the experience of being.”
He contrasts two strands of this cultural shift: one, a capitalist spectacle-driven version of curated experiences (“the customized holiday experience”), and another, a poetic, communal mode that tries to resist commodification. “Art has to step in and show what the experiential turn could look like,” he argues. “Not the Instagrammable installation, but something present.”
Back in Berlin, Aubry is officially launching his post-graduate life as an artist. “Technically, today is the first day I start my artistic practice,” he laughs.
He’s already showing work across Europe—in Venice and Paris. One of his early pieces, Berghaintrainer, a video game that simulates trying to enter Berlin’s notoriously exclusive club, is now on exhibit at Grand Palais Immersif until October first. “It’s a kind of satire, but it touches on real anxieties about access and visibility.” He’s also currently showing in the Wiesner Student Art Gallery at MIT as one of the 2025 Schnitzer Award recipients until the end of July.
Looking ahead, he’s imagining a broader platform for his ideas: perhaps a summer camp, maybe even a “school of real-time.” As he explains, “I’m interested in things that happen in the moment—simulations, performances, programs. Things that are alive.”
For Aubry, art isn’t just about objects or images; it’s about creating conditions for something to happen—something unrepeatable, unstable, and ultimately unforgettable.
“I’m skeptical of things that don’t change,” he says simply. “I think the future of art lies in things that move and are fluid—that are alive”
