BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) - ECPv6.15.18//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT)
X-ORIGINAL-URL:http://act.mit.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT)
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20210314T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20211107T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20220313T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20221106T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20230312T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20231105T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20240310T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20241103T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20260308T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20261101T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20270314T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20271107T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260330T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260330T193000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20260121T194339Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260121T194722Z
UID:14625-1774893600-1774899000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Artist Talk with Victoria Shen
DESCRIPTION:Victoria Shen is an interdisciplinary artist with a focus on sound and performance based in San Francisco. \nShen’s practice is concerned with the materiality of sound and its relationship to the human body through a lens of disruption and experimentation. She creates and manipulates custom-built sculptures and extensions specific to her body to challenge conventional methods of sound production and erode the boundaries between performer\, tool\, and audience. \nEschewing conventions in harmony and rhythm in favor of extreme textures and gestural tones\, Shen uses what she calls “chaotic sound” to oppose signal and information\, eluding traditionally embedded meaning. Her work resists passive consumption. Instead\, the body as both subject and instrument\, using movement and tactility to provoke visceral\, often confrontational encounters with sound. Her performances are deliberately physical\, unpredictable\, and ephemeral—rejecting polish in favor of raw immediacy. \nThrough a discursive practice spanning sound\, performance\, installation\, sculpture\, and non-traditional means of distribution\, themes of spectacle\, violence\, control\, and gender are interrogated. The intention is not to comfort or entertain\, but to destabilize: to push systems\, tools\, and traditions until they reveal something unexpected. \nPart of ACT’s Spring 2026 Lecture Series\, this program is in collaboration with the List Visual Arts Center and Non-Event. \nThe event is free and open to the public\, though registration is required. Register here. \n 
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/artist-talk-with-victoria-shen/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/20190721_Oita_-Yuki-Nishihara.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260309T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260309T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20260211T212543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20260217T141624Z
UID:14765-1773079200-1773079200@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Marek Poliks and Roberto Alonso Trillo | The Datacenter Does Not Exist
DESCRIPTION:This lecture examines AI infrastructure through exocapitalism\, a framework for understanding how capital can move independently of physical constraints like energy\, labor\, and raw materials. We’ll explore the strange economics of the AI boom (trillion-dollar announcements\, debts backed by computer chips\, and endless layers of intermediary management services) to argue that the “datacenter” now exists primarily as a financial object: a bundle of contracts\, debts\, and speculative claims. We conclude by identifying the race that will define 2026: between the financialization of massively-centralized infrastructure and the death of software as we currently know it. \nMarek Poliks and Roberto Alonso Trillo’s Exocapitalism: Economics with Absolutely No Limits (2025\, Becoming Press) has been lauded as among both the most controversial and the most accurate assessments of this economic moment — from “unbelievably inspiring” (Hito Steyerl) to “the Das Kapital of the 21st Century” (New Models) to “an info-hazard” (Metalabel) by “Hegel’s grandchildren” (Nick Land\, derogatory). Marek and Roberto won Google’s 2024 Art and Machine Intelligence Award for their work in AI interface design. \nThis event is part of ACT’s Spring 2026 Lecture Series and is in collaboration with MIT Radius. It is free and open to the public\, though registration is required. Register here. \nSpecial thanks to ACT Graduate Student Hugh Scott-Douglas (SMACT ’27) for spearheading this event.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/marek-poliks-and-roberto-alonso-trillo-the-datacenter-does-not-exist/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Exocapitalism_venice3.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251208T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251208T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20251115T030849Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251203T193905Z
UID:14434-1765216800-1765216800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Reza Negarestani | Modeling as Tektological Praxis
DESCRIPTION:Modeling as Tektological Praxis\nBy Reza Negarestani \nThis event is Free and Open to the Public. Register here. \nThis talk examines a cross-disciplinary problem: when compression in modeling—across scales or by computational cost—enables explanation and control\, and when it effaces the organizational structure on which action depends. It is framed by Alexander Bogdanov’s account of organization (ingression / disingression) and substitution as proto-modeling procedures developed within collective political practice\, and it reconsiders Michael Weisberg’s criteria of similarity and simulation as pillars of modeling across disciplines. A pragmatic rubric—fidelity\, transfer\, logical depth—is proposed to align modeling architectures with the generative structure of their targets\, disciplining the use of surrogate models\, multiscale simulation\, inverse design\, and forecasting. In Bogdanov’s register\, the upshot is that modeling’s practical expediency—its capacity to travel across domains without loss of organizational constraint and depth—grounds a concrete universalism rooted in collective revolutionary experimental practice and extending across art\, science\, mathematics\, engineering\, and collective political action. \nThe talk will be followed by a roundtable moderated by Ardalan SadeghiKivi (Lecturer of Comparative Media Studies at MIT)\, in conversation with W. Craig Carter (Toyota Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT)\, and Gediminas Urbonas (Professor of the Art\, Culture\, and Technology at MIT). \nThis event is organized with support from: Renée Green\, Tobias Putrih\, and MIT.nano. \n\nPart of the Fall 2025 Lecture Series.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/reza-negarestani-modeling-as-tektological-praxis/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Reza_Poster.001.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251027T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251027T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20251009T180946Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20251009T181855Z
UID:14135-1761588000-1761588000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Artist Discussion with Every Ocean Hughes
DESCRIPTION:5:00–6:00 PM – MIT List Visual Art Center open\n6:00–7:00 PM – Artist Discussion in ACT Cube \nList Projects 33: Every Ocean Hughes features One Big Bag (2021) is a 40-minute single channel video. \nThe video uses the “mobile corpse kit”—a bag filled with everyday objects doulas use to care for the newly dead—as both the visual structure and narrative driver of the video. With a matter-of-fact demeanor and intense physicality the performer guides the viewer into the largely uncharted waters of corpse care — practical\, political and spiritual. The form of the video creates a tension between the subject matter of dying and the forceful liveness of the performance itself.  Exhibiting artist Every Ocean Hughes will be joined by Suelin Chen to discuss the complications and complexities of end-of-life care drawn from themes presented in One Big Bag. \nList Center galleries will be open at 5:00 PM. \nSpeaker Bios \nEvery Ocean Hughes (b. 1977\, lives and works in Stockholm and New York) is a transdisciplinary artist and writer. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art\, New York (2023); Studio Voltaire\, London (2022); Moderna Museet\, Stockholm (2022); Secession\, Vienna (2015); and PARTICIPANT INC.\, New York (2015). Collaboration has been a central part of her practice: She was editor and cofounder of the queer feminist journal and artist collective LTTR\, has written lyrics for several bands (The Knife\, Colin Self\, JD Samson & MEN)\, and has done costume design. Hughes’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art\, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art\, New York; Centre national des arts plastiques\, Paris; Moderna Museet\, Stockholm; and Kadist\, Paris/San Francisco\, among others. For over ten years\, Hughes has taught art in Europe and the US and works as a coach for artists and creative producers as West Street Coaching. \nSuelin Chen is an entrepreneur and healthcare executive who was the founder/CEO of the largest website for end-of-life planning in the world (Cake)\, which has been visited by over 100 million people and was recently acquired by the second largest funeral company in the US. She is now doing corporate and commercial strategy for healthcare companies. She earned her BS and PhD from MIT\, where she worked on medical technology and was also a visitor\, intern (and\, later\, an advisory board member) of the List Visual Arts Center. \nThis program is in collaboration with the List Visual Arts Center. \nList Projects 33: Every Ocean Hughes features One Big Bag is on view at the List Visual Arts Center through December 14\, 2025. \nPart of the Fall 2025 Lecture Series.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/artist-discussion-with-every-ocean-hughes/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/sv_obb_055.jpg.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250916T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250916T193000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20250822T233623Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250912T214231Z
UID:13865-1758045600-1758051000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Julia Scher | A History of Surveillance and Security
DESCRIPTION:For the last forty years\, Julia Scher’s research has explored social control dynamics in the public sphere\, focusing especially on themes of surveillance. The art projects have taken the form of interactive installations\, reformulated surveillance\, site tours\, interventions\, performances\, photography\, writing\, online projects\, linear video\, and sound. \nThis talk offers a personal and critical reflection on the intertwined histories of surveillance and security—fields in which Julia Scher has worked on as an artist. \nSurveillance is often discussed as a technical or political issue\, but it is also deeply emotional\, cultural\, and aesthetic. It shapes how we move\, how we’re seen\, and what we choose to hide. Drawing from historical precedents\, contemporary systems\, and her own artistic practice\, Scher will explore how surveillance has expanded from state control and Cold War paranoia into the intimate\, performative spaces of everyday life. \nToday\, we don’t just experience surveillance—we participate in it as participant/subjects. Many projects today introduce us to the complex negotiation of identity\, access\, and control that is continually evolving\, growing\, and what Scher would characterize as the Ecology of Visibility. \nThis lecture will reference a range of works and artists engaging these questions—many of whom\, like Scher\, use installation\, media\, and performance to engage with themes of vulnerability\, visibility\, and power. We’ll consider how art can reflect and disturb surveillance logics\, from early conceptual gestures to some beginnings of AI-driven environments. The talk is presented as a short piece about systems—architectural\, technical\, social\, psychological— and what societies have tried for the sake of civil peace. \nFollowing the talk\, Scher will be joined by Catherine D’Ignazio as respondent. D’Ignazio is an Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. She is also Director of the Data + Feminism Lab which uses data and computational methods to work towards gender and racial equity\, particularly as they relate to space and place. \nPart of the Fall 2025 Lecture Series.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/julia-scher-a-history-of-surveillance-and-security/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IA-straight-shot-Julia-Scher.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250414T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250414T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20250331T193613Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250411T163251Z
UID:13126-1744653600-1744653600@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Judith Barry in Conversation with Joan Jonas
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a conversation between ACT Professor Judith Barry and ACT Professor Emerita Joan Jonas. Among other things\, they will discuss recent and current projects and exhibitions. \nRegistration is required. This event is free and open to the public. \nJoan Jonas (b. 1936\, New York\, NY) is a world-renowned artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video\, performance\, installation\, sound\, text\, and sculpture. Jonas’s experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres\, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre. Since 1968\, her practice has explored ways of seeing\, the rhythms of rituals\, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas has exhibited and performed extensively around the world. Her notable exhibition history includes Documenta 5\, 6\, 7\, 8\, 11\, and 13; the 28th São Paulo Biennial; the 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale; and the 13th Shanghai Biennale. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at the United States Pavilion for the 56th Edition of the Venice Biennial; Tate Modern\, London; Museu Serralves\, Porto; Pinacoteca de São Paulo; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza\, Madrid; Dia Beacon; Haus der Kunst\, Munich; and The Drawing Center\, New York. Most recently\, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a retrospective of Jonas’s work. Jonas is the recipient of many awards including The Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon (2016); the Maya Deren Award given by the American Film Institute (1989); and the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2009). In 2024\, she was presented the Nam June Paik prize\, awarded to artists who have contributed to the development of contemporary art\, mutual understanding\, and world peace; and in 2018\, Jonas was awarded the prestigious Kyoto Prize\, given to those individuals who have contributed significantly to the scientific\, cultural\, and spiritual betterment of mankind. \nJudith Barry is an artist and writer whose work combines a number of disciplines including installation and project-based research\, architecture/exhibition design\, film/video\, performance art/dance\, sculpture\, photography\, and digital media. \nShe has exhibited internationally at such venues as the Berlin Biennale\, Venice Biennale(s) of Art/Architecture\, Sharjah Biennial\, Sao Paolo Biennale\, Nagoya Biennale\, Carnegie International\, Whitney Biennale\, Sydney Biennale\, and Documenta\, among others. Her awards include the Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts 2000 and “Best Pavilion” at the Cairo Biennale\, 2001. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. \nPublic Fantasy\, a collection of Barryʼs essays\, was published by the ICA in London (1991). \nOther publications include Projections: mise en abyme (1997)\, the catalogue for The Study for the Mirror and Garden in Granada\, Spain (2003) and Body without Limits\, Salamanca\, Spain (2009). \nHer work is included in the collection of MoMA\, NYC\, Whitney Museum NYC\, Generali Foundation\, Vienna\, MCA\, San Diego\, Pompidou Center\, Paris\, Le Caixa\, Barcelona\, MACBA\, Barcelona\, FNAC\, Paris\, Goetz collection\, Munich\, Frac Lorraine\, Metz\, and CIFO\, Miami among others. A survey of her work traveled in Europe\, most recently at Berardo Museum\, Lisbon\, Portugal in 2010. \nRecent exhibitions include “…cairo stories” (2018) and “Imagination\, dead imagine” (2017)\, Mary Boone Gallery NYC\, Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum\, Boston\, (2018) (solo). ”West By Midwest”\, MCA\, Chicago\, “Art in the Age of the Internet”\, ICA Boston and UMMA\, Ann Arbor\, “Unholding”\, Artists Space\, NYC\, “The Voice”\, Coreana Museum\, Seoul\, “Exhibition as Image”\, Ludlow 38\, NYC\, “Down And To The Left”\, Armory Center for the Arts\, Pasadena\, “Electronic Superhighway” MAAT\, Lisbon and Whitechapel\, London\, “Dis-Play/Re-Play”\, Austrian Cultural Forum\, NYC\, and “Putting Rehearsals to the Test”\, VOX Contemporary Image\, Montreal (group) among many others. \nShe has taught and lectured extensively in the USA\, Asia and Europe. Full-time teaching positions include ACT at MIT\, Cambridge (2002-2003)\, the Merz. Akademie\, Stuttgart\, Germany (2003–2005). Currently she is Professor at ACT\, and previously served as Director of the program. \nPart of the Spring 2025 Lecture Series. This event is presented as part of Artfinity\, an Institute-sponsored event celebrating creativity and community at MIT. Artfinity is organized by the Office of the Arts.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/judith-barry-in-conversation-with-joan-jonas/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Joan_Jonas-Shot-4_0001-Pano-Edit_e-Emily-Bates.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250311T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250311T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20250304T210653Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250306T182113Z
UID:13026-1741716000-1741716000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Johan Grimonprez | Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
DESCRIPTION:Film screening of Oscar® nominated Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat and conversation with filmmaker Johan Grimonprez. \nJazz and decolonization are entwined in Johan Grimonprez’s Oscar® nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film historical rollercoaster that rewrites the Cold War episode that led musicians Abbey Lincoln and Max Roach to crash the UN Security Council in protest against the murder of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. \nIt is 1961\, six months after the admission of sixteen newly independent African countries to the UN\, a political earthquake that shifts the majority vote from the colonial powers to the Global South. As Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev bangs his shoe in indignation at the UN’s complicity in the overthrow of Lumumba\, the US State Department swings into action by sending jazz ambassador Louis Armstrong to Congo to deflect attention from the CIA-backed coup. \nFeaturing excerpts from “My Country\, Africa” by Andrée Blouin (narrated by Marie Daulne aka Zap Mama)\, “Congo Inc.” by In Koli Jean Bofane\, “To Katanga and Back” by Conor Cruise O’Brien (narrated by Patrick Cruise O’Brien)\, and audio memoirs by Nikita Khrushchev. \nFollowing the screening\, Johan will be joined by Amah Edoh for a conversation. Amah is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the production of knowledge about Africa\, and on how “African-ness” is produced across West Africa and Western Europe\, both through objects and in bodies. Amah was Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at MIT from 2017 to 2022. She has researched and written on Dutch Wax cloth\, a textile designed and manufactured in the Netherlands for West and Central African markets since the early 20th century\, that has since become a highly prized textile in these regions. Her latest publication\, forthcoming in American Anthropologist\, is an autoethnographic exploration of how political and economic upheaval in Togo since the early 1990s impacted the Dutch Wax cloth trade and the Togolese women who\, over the course of decades\, had made the cloth into a significant cultural artifact in the country. \nPart of the Spring 2025 Lecture Series. This event is presented as part of Artfinity\, an Institute-sponsored event celebrating creativity and community at MIT. Artfinity is organized by the Office of the Arts.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/johan-grimonprez-soundtrack-to-a-coup-detat/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2024_Soundtrack-to-a-Coup-dEtat_Johan-Grimonprez_Andrée-Blouin-©Terence-SpencerPopperfoto.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250303T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250303T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20250208T024111Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250306T182130Z
UID:12970-1741024800-1741024800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Abhijit Banerjee | Jamdaani Weaving
DESCRIPTION:Art Exhibition and Lecture on the history and future of handloom jamdaani weaving by MIT Economist Abhijit Banerjee\, Artist-Illustrator Cheyenne Olivier\, and Woolmark Prizewinning Garment Designer Suket Dhir. The Exhibition will feature artworks in jamdaani including a woven scroll and garments\, and a video on jamdaani weaving. \nThis is the first exhibition of a textile art project that stands at the intersection of two of Banerjee’s long-term interests–the economics of traditional crafts and the visual presentation of economic ideas. Here will be exhibited the first of 5 woven scrolls based on illustrations by Cheyenne Olivier telling Abhijit Banerjee’s version of the story of Jamdaani weaving from the 18th century to the present day\, its encounters with the colonizers (who tried to destroy the industry)\, the forced migration of the weavers and the struggles of the industry to survive in a market economy and globalizing world. The installation confronts the shimmering multi-colored jamdaani scroll with gritty videos of the actual weaving process by Ranu Ghosh and Suket Dhir’s more practical world of designing clothes using motifs from the project. \nAbhijit Vinayak Banerjee is the Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at MIT. In 2003\, he co-founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) with Esther Duflo and Sendhil Mullainathan\, and he remains one of the Lab’s Directors. \nBanerjee is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences\, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences\, and the Econometric Society. He is a winner of the Infosys Prize and a co-recipient of the 2019 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel\, awarded for his groundbreaking work in development economics research. \nBanerjee is the author of a large number of articles and six books\, including Poor Economics\, which won the Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year\, Good Economics for Hard Times\, both co-authored with Esther Duflo\, and Cooking to Save Your Life. He is the editor of three more books and has directed two documentary films. \nBanerjee has served on the U.N. Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. He is a trustee of Save the Children USA\, a trustee of the British Museum\, and the Chair of the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel and the Global Advisory Board for Covid-19 Response of the government of West Bengal. \nCheyenne Olivier is a French illustrator. She graduated from the Estienne Arts and Design School in Paris and the Decorative Arts School in Strasbourg\, where she earned an MFA in Illustration. Her images\, characterized by their geometric and playful nature\, often center around the visual representation of social and environmental issues. Notably\, she collaborated with Nobel Prize-winning economist Esther Duflo on a series of ten picture books addressing poverty. Currently\, she illustrates a monthly column on food and economics alongside Nobel Prize winner Abhijit Banerjee for the Times of India. Olivier has been honoured with the Young Talent Award at the International Comics Festival in Angoulême\, as well as the regional Avenir Prize by the French National Crafts Institute. She is currently pursuing a PhD in children’s literature at the University of Tours and the Design School in Orléans. Her connection with India continues to deepen through her collaborations with Indian authors\, artists\, and readers\, along with her active participation in numerous literary festivals and events. \nSuket Dhir graduated from the National Institute of Fashion Design and achieved a successful association with Good Earth. The designer has garnered popularity for playful fabrics and attention to detail. His signature creations harmonise leisure and minimalism. Suket Dhir is known as the man of complexities. A former travel risk analyst\, Sveltlana Dhir is the muse for the brand. \nFollowing their presentation\, they will be joined by Amah Edoh for the conversation. Amah is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on the production of knowledge about Africa\, and on how “African-ness” is produced across West Africa and Western Europe\, both through objects and in bodies. Amah was Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African Studies at MIT from 2017 to 2022. She has researched and written on Dutch Wax cloth\, a textile designed and manufactured in the Netherlands for West and Central African markets since the early 20th century\, that has since become a highly prized textile in these regions. Her latest publication\, forthcoming in American Anthropologist\, is an autoethnographic exploration of how political and economic upheaval in Togo since the early 1990s impacted the Dutch Wax cloth trade and the Togolese women who\, over the course of decades\, had made the cloth into a significant cultural artifact in the country. \nPart of the Spring 2025 Lecture Series. This event is presented as part of Artfinity\, an Institute-sponsored event celebrating creativity and community at MIT. Artfinity is organized by the Office of the Arts.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/abhijit-banerjee/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Jamdani_2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241206T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241206T183000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20241109T023122Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241205T191800Z
UID:12617-1733509800-1733509800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Andrew Neumann | “The Predictability of Unpredictability*…”
DESCRIPTION:In collaboration with the MIT List Visual Arts Center\, we invite you for an evening of experimental sound and visual performance\, “The Predictability of Unpredictability*…” by Andrew Neumann. The event is free and open to the public\, though reservation is suggested. \nThis performance\, originally conceived as a small system designed for solo improvisation has for the past year been going through a series of new permutations; sonically\, structurally\, and physically. Employing a Buchla Music System as the main sound source\, this analog synthesizer works in conjunction with a custom designed video switching system controlled by a laptop\, allowing the system to cut and manipulate video cameras and prerecorded images in real time. The notion of “unpredictability” in this scenario is\, one may assume predictably high! \nAbout the Artist \nAndrew Neumann is an American artist who works in a variety of media\, including sculpture\, film\, video installation\, and electronic/interactive music. His work is concerned with developing hybrid systems that integrate sound\, image and text into performative and installation situations. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004. He has had one-person shows at bitforms Gallery\, NYC\, the DeCordova Museum\, the Boston Cyberarts Festival. His single channel videos have been shown on PBS\, The Worldwide Video Festival\, Artist Space\, Microscope Gallery\, and elsewhere. He has been awarded residencies at The MacDowell Colony\, Yaddo\, Ucross Foundation\, STEIM\, Harvestworks\, NYC\, and elsewhere. He has had solo music/video performances at numerous venues\, including Experimental Intermedia and Roulette\, both in NYC. \nPart of the Fall 2024 Lecture Series. This event is in conjunction with Steina: Playback.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/andrew-neumann-the-predictability-of-unpredictability/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/andrew-neumann.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241125T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241125T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20241025T161610Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241122T180029Z
UID:12515-1732557600-1732557600@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Emilija Škarnulytė | Diving through strata: From the cosmic and geological to the ecological and political
DESCRIPTION:Emilija Škarnulytė is an artist and filmmaker\, who reflects on human civilization through the topic of deep time. In the exploration of invisible structures and components of reality beyond human control\, she uses the camera as an archaeological tool that pierces through cosmic and geologic\, as well as ecological and political strata. Immersive experiences\, exercising a move away from the homocentric perspective\, dive into the Earth discovering signs of human presence and its interrelation with the beyond-human. \nEmilija Škarnulytė is a Lithuanian-born artist and filmmaker. Working between documentary and speculative fiction\, her video works take viewers through decommissioned nuclear power plants\, deep-sea data storage units\, forgotten underwater cities\, and uncanny natural phenomena. Škarnulytė is the recipient of the 2023 Ars Fennica Award and the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize. The artist has most recently presented work at the Gwangju Biennale\, Helsinki Biennale\, Vilnius Biennale\, and the Henie Onstad Triennale. Recent solo exhibitions include: Canal Projects\, Kunsthaus Göttingen\, and Ferme-Asile. Škarnulytė is a co-founder and co-director of the Polar Film Lab\, a collective for analogue film practice located in Tromsø\, Norway\, and is a member of the artist duo New Mineral Collective. \nFollowing the lecture\, Škarnulytė will be joined by Professors Kate Brown and Gediminas Urbonas\, and ACT student Luca E. Lum (SMACT ’25). \nKate Brown is the Thomas M. Siebel Distinguished Professor in the History of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of several prize-winning histories\, including Plutopia: Nuclear Families\, Atomic Cities\, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford 2013). \nGediminas Urbonas is an ACT Professor\, artist\, educator\, and researcher. He is a co-founder of US: Urbonas Studio (together with Nomeda Urbonas)\, an interdisciplinary research practice that facilitates exchange amongst diverse nodes of knowledge production and artistic practice in pursuit of projects that transform civic spaces and collective imaginaries. \nLuca E. Lum (SMACT ’25) is an artist and writer attuned to arrhythmias of time\, memory\, body\, and affect. Working across forms\, her ongoing interests include misrecognition\, extended and distributed agencies\, fraught mediations\, and dispositions of feeling and affinity that organise life and meaning. She considers the technological\, semiotic and informational as material\, relation\, and predicament. She traverses fiction\, poetry\, and analysis in her texts. \nPart of the Fall 2024 Lecture Series.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/emilija-skarnulyte-diving-through-strata-from-the-cosmic-and-geological-to-the-ecological-and-political/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/G.Grigenaite-202-1-Emilija-Skarnulyte-Studio-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241024T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241024T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20241008T183152Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241010T184335Z
UID:12373-1729792800-1729792800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Lucy Orta
DESCRIPTION:Presented with the MIT Department of Architecture. \nONLINE Webcast \nLucy Orta’s visual arts practice investigates the interrelations between the individual body and community structures\, exploring their diverse identities and means of cohabitation and employing socially engaged methodologies. She works across a range of mediums including drawing\, textile sculpture\, photography\, film and performance to realise singular bodies of work. Amongst the most notable are ‘Refuge Wear‘ and ‘Body Architecture’\, portable and autonomous habitats that reflect on issues of mobility and human survival; ‘Nexus Architecture‘\, clothing and accessories that shape modular and collective bodies through the metaphor of the social link; and ‘Life Guards‘ and ‘Genius Loci‘\, wearable sculpture that embody human vulnerability and resilience. She collaborates with a wide range of communities\, often those on the margins of exclusion such as prison residents\, asylum seekers\, homeless and care hostel residents\, empowering participants through co-creation and inclusive methods of creative practice. \nIn 2003 she was the youngest female artist to be published in the Phaidon Press contemporary artist collection. In acknowledgement of her innovative socially engaged research practice Lucy Orta was nominated as Head of the Man & Humanity\, a pioneering master program for sustainable design\, which she cofounded with Li Edelkoort at Design Academy Eindhoven\, in 2002. She is a Professor at London College of Fashion since 2002\, a member of the Centre for Sustainable Fashion\, and Chair of Art and the Environment at the University of the Arts London since 2013. In recognition of her esteem and academic contribution to the visual arts\, she has received an honorary Master of Arts from Nottingham Trent University and an honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Brighton. \nLucy co-founded the Studio Orta with her partner the Argentine artist Jorge Orta\, in 1992. They have worked in partnership since 2005 under the co-authorship Lucy + Jorge Orta. In recognition of their contribution to the arts\, they are the recipients of numerous awards including the Andy Warhol Foundation Visual Arts Award (2001) and Green Leaf Award for artistic excellence with an environmental message\, presented by United Nations Environment Programme in partnership with the Natural World Museum at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo\, Norway (2007). Their monumental Cloud Meteoros was selected for the inaugural Terrace Wires public art commission for St Pancras International in London (2013). \nThis lecture will be held in person in Long Lounge\, 7-429 and streamed online. \nLectures are free and open to the public. Lectures will be held Thursdays at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted. Registration required to attend in-person. Register here or watch the webcast on Youtube. \nPart of the Fall 2024 Lecture Series. The lecture is free and open to the public.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/lucy-orta/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/L-Orta-portrait-1170x655-1.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241007T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241007T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240830T191319Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240830T191615Z
UID:12207-1728324000-1728324000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Atif Akin | morph\, mutant\, myth
DESCRIPTION:Atif Akin’s lecture will focus on works that examine science\, nature\, mobility\, and politics through (a) historical and contemporary lens\, exploring transdisciplinary issues within a technoscientific context. Akin delves into his decade-long research on radiation\, mutation\, and archaeology\, offering a narrative on the intersection of art\, science\, and politics. He examines radioactivity and mutant spaces\, positioning the nuclear as a deep time-space interface. \nThe discussion challenges conventional discourses\, prompting deeper reflection on technoscience and its contemporary relevance. \nIan Hodder’s book Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things is recommended as complementary reading.  \nPart of the Fall 2024 Lecture Series. The lecture is free and open to the public.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/atif-akin-morph-mutant-myth/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/atif_akin_mutant_time_03-Atif-Akin.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240923T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240923T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240830T184940Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240830T191341Z
UID:12195-1727114400-1727114400@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Anne Duk Hee Jordan | Worldbuilding in Times of Ecological Disruptions: Embracing Artificial Stupidity\, the Digital Gaze\, and the Power of Analog Movements and Natural Intelligence
DESCRIPTION:In Anne Duk Hee Jordan’s work\, she explores the intersection of technology and nature\, challenging the omnipotence of AI by embracing artificial stupidity. Through installations and sculptures\, she reveals the poetic beauty of failure and the unpredictability of the digital gaze. Her creations simulate ecosystems where machines and organic lifeforms coalesce\, questioning the boundaries of intelligence and creativity. By deliberately incorporating glitches and errors\, she highlights the fragility of our ecological systems and provoke contemplation on the role of humanity in a digitally dominated world. Changing perspective in her art prompts a shift in ecological being\, urging viewers to reconsider their relationship with technology and nature. This lecture will touch on being between research and the actual constructed world. \nPart of the Fall 2024 Lecture Series. The lecture is free and open to the public.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/anne-duk-hee-jordan-worldbuilding-in-times-of-ecological-disruptions-embracing-artificial-stupidity-the-digital-gaze-and-the-power-of-analog-movements-and-natural-intelligence/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/20240624-Joe-Miletzki-DSC_2360_LR-Anne-Duk-Hee-Jordan.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20240923
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20241207
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240828T214017Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20241109T023157Z
UID:12188-1727049600-1733529599@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Fall 2024 Lecture Series
DESCRIPTION:The Fall 2024 programming aims to revisit the foundational parameters of the Art\, Culture\, and Technology Program\, positioning ACT within the context of a changing world and its future challenges. By articulating key thematic avenues and methodological approaches that intersect the work of invited artists and ACT faculty members\, we link these inquiries to concerns of other researchers at MIT and beyond. \nMonday\, September 23\nAnne Duk Hee Jordan\n6pm\nACT Cube (E15-001) \nMonday\, October 7\nAtif Akin\n6pm\nACT Cube (E15-001) \nThursday\, October 24\nLucy Orta\n6pm\nLong Lounge (7-429)\nIn collaboration with the Department of Architecture \nMonday\, November 25\nEmilija Škarnulytė\n6pm\nACT Cube (E15-001) \nFriday\, December 6\nAndrew Neumann\n6pm\nACT Cube (E15-001)\nIn collaboration with the List Visual Arts Center
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/fall-2024-lecture-series/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/cube-copy-2.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240408T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240408T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240205T173531Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240405T200949Z
UID:11133-1712599200-1712599200@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Daniel R. Small | Techne: Evidence in the Anthropocene
DESCRIPTION:Techne: Evidence in the Anthropocene telescopes between galactic and planetary evidence that is presented by scientists and artist-investigators who contemplate both deep time and the fate of the human species. Using the framework of a simulation model developed at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory that considers the probability for intelligent life to occur in the Milky Way galaxy\, as well as the potential for self-annihilation; new forms and methods of investigation are highlighted. By moving back and forth between dystopian landscapes\, forgotten technologies\, legal conditions\, and forensic traces a web of interconnected realities emerges through seemingly disparate sets of ideas and research methods. Evidence in the Anthropocene is about an era that is marked by a crisis of imagination and travels with these scientists and artists to explore the lush landscape of a remote Indonesian palm oil plantation; the abandoned ruins of a former nuclear test site in the Bikini Atoll lagoon that now appears as a sub-natural alien megastructure; the concept of the “material witness” in the context of the legal imagination; and gestures towards colonizing other planets and the “cone of imaginable possibilities” by developing weaving prototypes in zero gravity. \nFollowing the screening\, there will be a conversation between filmmaker Daniel R. Small\, Sarah Wolozin (Director\, MIT Open Doc Lab)\, and Aubrie R.M. James (SMACT ’24)\, moderated by Gediminas Urbonas (Associate Professor\, ACT). \nAbout Daniel R. Small:\nDaniel R. Small is a contemporary artist\, filmmaker\, and educator based in Los Angeles California. His work engages with speculative pasts and futures through interventions in sites\, narratives\, and technologies. His projects have engaged with organizations such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation\, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory\, Forensic Architecture\, UNESCO\, and others\, working alongside these institutions to set up various thought experiments or interventions within pre-existing research systems or archives. He is currently working on a film that follows an effort to revise the Voyager Golden Record which will serve as an interstellar archive of Earth and its inhabitants. \nPart of the Spring 2024 Lecture Series. The lecture is free and open to the public.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/daniel-r-small-techne-evidence-in-the-anthropocene/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/TechneStill_1-Daniel-Small-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240321T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240321T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240205T172901Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240301T202052Z
UID:11128-1711044000-1711044000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Anissa Touati | Imagining Communities through Architecture: The Mediterranean Sea as a Constellation
DESCRIPTION:Imagining Communities through Architecture: The Mediterranean Sea as a Constellation \nThis lecture will present three projects that bring together art and architecture united by the Mediterranean Sea as a coherent site of imagination\, collective future and interconnectedness: \n1.Cycles of Collapsing Progress\, an exhibition held at the Oscar Niemeyer-designed Unesco World Heritage Site in Tripoli\, Lebanon. \n2. Warché\, a show at the Thalie Foundation in Brussels that links the history of Beirut with the sunken Roman city of Baiae (Italy) and the geometrical architecture of the Arab world  through an original installation by architect Lina Gothmeh. \n3. Mare a Mare\, a refuge for a Mediterranean nation\, designed with architect Meriem Chabani for the Lagos Biennale in Nigeria. This pavilion refers to a transnational shelter where differences cohabit\, exceeding national identities\, borders\, and hierarchies: a breeding ground for future intersections. \nTaking this intercontinental Basin as a key site for the exchange of ideas\, these 3 proposals reconfigure the Mediterranean as a constellation\, both imaginary and real. Navigating from shore to shore\, fictional communities help us see the Mediterranean Sea as a whole. \nAbout Anissa Touati:\nAnissa Touati is a transnational independent curator working between the West and the global South. Trained as an archeologist and medievalist\, she takes the Broader Mediterranean as a source of inspiration for her pluriversal work. She is currently guest curator 2023-2024 of the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire\, Geneva and visiting scholar at Brown University\, USA. Over the past decade\,  She has taken on the role of  artistic  director at several international locations\, curated or co-curated exhibitions and projects in many different countries including Chalet Society (France)\, Paris Internationale (France)\, Thalie Foundation (Belgium)\, Contemporary Istanbul (Turkey)\, BEMA Museum (Lebanon)\, Lagos Biennial (Nigeria)\, Broad art museum (USA) amongst others. \nPart of the Spring 2024 Lecture Series. In collaboration with the Department of Architecture.  The lecture is free and open to the public.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/anissa-touati-imagining-communities-through-architecture-the-mediterranean-sea-as-a-constellation/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/2.ZaadMoultaka.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240318T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240318T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240124T201407Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240124T213729Z
UID:11020-1710784800-1710784800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Kimberly Juanita Brown | Mortevivum
DESCRIPTION:A powerful examination of the unsettling history of photography and its fraught relationship to global antiblackness. \nPart of the Spring 2024 Lecture Series. In collaboration with MIT Press. This lecture will be held in person in the ACT Cube (E15-001). Following Kimberly Juanita Brown’s presentation/reading\, she will be joined by ACT lecturer Hector Membreno-Canales and Sandy Alexandre\, Associate Professor\, Literature at MIT for a moderated Q+A. \nThe lecture is free and open to the public\, though registration is required.\nPlease register here. \nSince photography’s invention\, black life has been presented as fraught\, short\, agonizingly filled with violence\, and indifferent to intervention: living death—mortevivum—in a series of still frames that refuse a complex humanity. In Mortevivum\, Kimberly Juanita Brown shows us how the visual logic of documentary photography and the cultural legacy of empire have come together to produce the understanding that blackness and suffering—and death—are inextricable. Brown traces this idea from the earliest images of the enslaved to the latest newspaper photographs of black bodies\, from the United States and South Africa to Haiti and Rwanda\, documenting the enduring\, pernicious connection between photography and a global history of antiblackness. \nPhotography’s history\, inextricably linked to colonialism and white supremacy\, is a catalog of othering\, surveillance\, and the violence of objectification. In the genocide in Rwanda\, for instance\, photographs after the fact tell viewers that blackness comes with a corresponding violence that no human intervention can abate. In Haiti\, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere\, photographic “evidence” of its sovereign failure suggests that the formerly enslaved cannot overthrow their masters and survive to tell the tale. And in South Africa and the United States\, a loop of racial violence reminds black subjects of their lower-class status mandated via the state. Illustrating the global nature of antiblackness that pervades photographic archives of the present and the past\, Mortevivum reveals how we live in a repetition of imagery signaling who lives and who dies on a gelatin silver print—on a page in a book\, on the cover of newspaper\, and in the memory of millions. \nMortevivum is the inaugural title of On Seeing\, a new publication series devoted to visual literacy. Publications foreground the political agency\, critical insight\, and social impact inscribed in visuality and representation. The MIT Press will publish each On Seeing volume as a print book\, ebook\, and open access digital edition created by Brown University Digital Publications. \nAbout:\nKimberly Juanita Brown is the inaugural director of the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life at Dartmouth College where she is also an Associate Professor of English and creative writing. She is the author of The Repeating Body: Slavery’s Visual Resonance in the Contemporary. Brown was the Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Assistant Professor for 2017-2018\, hosted by MIT Literature and MIT Women’s & Gender Studies. \nSandy Alexandre is an Associate Professor\, Literature at MIT\, whose research spans the late nineteenth-century to present-day black American literature and culture. Her first book\, The Properties of Violence: Claims to Ownership in Representations of Lynching (Mississippi 2012)\, uses the history of American lynching violence as a framework to understand matters concerning displacement\, property ownership\, and the American pastoral ideology in a literary context. \nHector R. Membreno-Canales\, ACT lecturer\, was born in San Pedro Sula\, Honduras (1988) and grew up in Allentown\, Pennsylvania. He served more than a decade as a US Army Photographer working in Iraq\, El Salvador\, Poland and more.  Hector used the Post 9/11 G.I. Bill to study Photography at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) and earned his MFA from the Dept. of Art & Art History at Hunter College\, The City University of New York. Hector’s work explores official histories\, American patriotism\, and the Military-Industrial Complex. \n 
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/kimberly-juanita-brown-mortevivum/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Screen-Shot-2024-01-24-at-1.54.37-PM.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240212T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240212T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20240124T202901Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240202T202247Z
UID:11027-1707760800-1707760800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Jackson 2bears | Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa í:se Onkwehonwe
DESCRIPTION:Part of the Spring 2024 Lecture Series. In collaboration with the MIT Center for Art\, Science & Technology (CAST)\, and co-sponsored by MIT Native American and Indigenous Association (NAIA)\, MIT American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES)\, and Co-Creation Studio. This lecture will be held in person in the Bartos Theater (E15-070). \nThe lecture is free and open to the public\, though registration is required.\nPlease register here. \nJackson 2bears\, Kanien’kehaka artist and scholar\, presents a lecture about his artistic project\, Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa í:se Onkwehonwe. This multimedia\, communal VR installation is a collaborative creation of 2bears and 2RO MEDIA\, developed in partnership with members of the Six Nations of the Grand River Community. \nPremiering at the 2RO MEDIA Festival in Ohsweken in October 2023\, the artwork unfolds on a 34-foot panorama screen\, utilizing multiple projectors to craft an immersive environment complemented by a 14.2 channel surround audio system. Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa delves into a fictional re-telling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story\, offering a cyclical narrative that traverses the realms of the past\, present\, and future. \nThis large scale installation\, tailor-made for Thru the Red Door\, a production venue in Six Nations\, transcended its static presentation during the festival; It transformed into a dynamic space\, hosting impromptu performances\, dance\, drumming\, and various other creative and cultural practices. \nProduction and development was supported by MIT Co Creation Studio and MIT Center for Art\, Science & Technology (CAST); additional project support was provided by the Canada Council for the Arts. \nThis event is part of the Art\, Culture\, and Technology Program Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by MIT Native American and Indigenous Association (NAIA)\, MIT American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES)\, Co-Creation Studio\, and CAST. \nAccessibility:\nWe strive to host inclusive\, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage and participate fully. To request an accommodation or for inquiries about accessibility\, please contact higginsk@mit.edu. \nPre-lecture reception:\nJoin us at 5:15pm for light refreshments; lecture begins at 6pm.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/jackson-2bears-nekahwistaraken-kanonhsakowa-ise-onkwehonwe/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Jackson-2bears.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231116T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231116T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20230921T003201Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230921T003201Z
UID:10487-1700157600-1700157600@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Sarah Kanouse | My Electric Genealogy
DESCRIPTION:Part of the Fall 2023 Lecture Series. In collaboration with the Department of Architecture. This lecture will be held in person in the ACT Cube (E15-001). \nPart storytelling\, part lecture\, and part live documentary film\, Sarah Kanouse’s solo performance “My Electric Genealogy” explores the shifting cultures and politics of energy in Los Angeles and the West through the lens of her own family. \n“For nearly forty years my grandfather worked for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power\, designing\, planning\, and supervising the network of lines connecting the city to its distant sources of electricity\,” Kanouse explains. “The grid was his second family: when he died\, he left behind boxes of snapshots that mixed birthday parties and family Christmases with portraits of power plants and transmission towers. Years later\, I learned his legacy also included some of the most polluting fossil fuel infrastructure in the country—much of it located out of state\, on Indigenous land. As these power plants finally and belatedly come down\, what is owed the communities long harmed by this infrastructure?” \nCombining storytelling with moving images\, movement\, and an original score\, the 75-minute performance examines the “infrastructures of feeling” supported by the electric grid\, including assumptions of perpetual growth and closely held beliefs about nature\, gender\, race\, and progress. Sarah Kanouse weaves together signal moments in Los Angeles history\, episodes of her grandfather’s life\, anxious fantasies about a climate-challenged future\, and stories of resistance and reinvention in the face of extraction. “My Electric Genealogy” is an essayistic working-through of energy as a personal and collective inheritance at a moment of eco-political reckoning. \nLA-based musician and sonic artist Jacob Ross contributed original music and sound design for “My Electric Genealogy.” Ross has worked with wide variety of filmmakers and performers including Lucky Pierre\, Terri Kapsalis\, Deke Weaver\, Deborah Stratman\, and Califone. \nSarah Kanouse is an interdisciplinary artist\, writer\, and filmmaker whose solo and collaborative work has been presented at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt\, Documenta 13\, the Museum of Contemporary Art-Chicago\, The Cooper Union\, The Smart Museum\, and numerous festivals\, academic institutions and artist-run spaces. Raised in Los Angeles\, she is now based in Boston\, where she teaches at Northeastern University. \n“My Electric Genealogy” premiered at Los Angeles’s 2220 Arts + Archives on September 29\, with additional West Coast dates at Cal State Fullerton\, the Claremont Colleges\, UC Irvine\, LANDING Space at UC Santa Cruz\, the University of Oregon\, and Caltech.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/sarah-kanouse-my-electric-genealogy/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Kanouse_MEG_still_hooverdam-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231026T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231026T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20230921T001715Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231006T195930Z
UID:10472-1698343200-1698343200@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Sama Alshaibi\, Sadik Alfraji\, and Huma Gupta | From the Great Flood to the Great Migration
DESCRIPTION:Sama Alshaibi\, Sadik Alfraji\, and Huma Gupta | From the Great Flood to the Great Migration \nPart of the Fall 2023 Lecture Series. In collaboration with the Aga Khan Program and the Department of Architecture. This lecture will be held in person in Long Lounge\, 7-429 and streamed online. \nIraki-Dutch Multimedia artist Sadik Alfraji works in drawing\, painting\, print\, photograph\, sculpture\, video and animation. He pursuit his art profession depending on the expressionistic intensity of the graphic and focusing on the concepts of the existence. \nHe mostly works in black and white and with personal source material investigating anxiety\, loss\, fragmentation\, and lapses in time that underline exile. \nHis work has been presented in numerous solos and group exhibitions in several art venues such as: MoMa PS1\, QAGOMA\, Queensland Art Gallery; British Museum; 56th and 57th Venice Biennale; Videobrasil; Mori Art Museum; LACMA Museum\, LA. USA; Busan Museum of Art; Red Star Line Museum; Stijdelijk Museum Amsterdam; Kunsthal KAdE\, NL; MAMA Museum\, Algiers; Station Museum\, Houston; MAMBA Museum\, Buenos Aires; CCPLM\, Centro Cultural La Moneda\, Chile\, and many others. \nHis works are housed in collections such as Stedelijk Museum\, Amsterdam; The British Museum\, UK; Museum Flehite\, NL; MFAH\, Museum of Fine Arts\, Houston; LACMA\, Los Angeles Country Museum; MATHAF\, Arab Museum of Modern Art\, Qatar; Barjeel Art Foundation\, UAE; Cluj-Napoca Art Museum\, Romania; Novosibirsk State Art Museum\, Russia; Shoman Foundation Amman\, Jordan; French cultural center\, Amman\, Jordan; National Gallery of Fine Arts\, Amman\, Jordan; The Art Center\, Baghdad; The National Museum of Modern Art\, Baghdad; etc. He works and lives in The Netherlands. \nSama Alshaibi (b. 1973\, Iraq) is an artist based in the United States and working between photography\, video\, and installation. Her practice explores the notion of aftermath—the fragmentation and dispossession that violates the individual and a community following the destruction of their social\, natural\, and built environment. In her photographs and videos\, Alshaibi often uses her own body as both subject and medium\, a staging site for encounters\, peripheries\, and refuge\, even when carrying the markings of war and dislocation. Her work complicates the coding of the Arab female figure found in the image history of photographs and moving images. \nAlshaibi was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2021 and received the Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award from the Phoenix Art Museum. Her work has been exhibited in numerous biennales and museums\, including the 55th Venice Biennale\, the 2020 State of the Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art\, the Museum of Modern Art\, the 13th Cairo Biennale\, Barjeel Foundation\, Royal Ontario Museum\, Arab American National Museum\, among others. Aperture published her monograph Sama Alshaibi: Sand Rushes In\, featuring the artist’s Silsila series. Alshaibi is a Regents Professor of Photography\, Video and Imaging at the University of Arizona. \nLectures are free and open to the public. Lectures will be held Thursdays at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted. Registration required to attend in-person. Register here or watch the webcast on Youtube.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/sama-alshaibi-sadik-alfraji-and-huma-gupta-from-the-great-flood-to-the-great-migration/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Iihya-dusk-woman-with-reedsite.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231023T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231023T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20230921T003927Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231006T214836Z
UID:10495-1698084000-1698084000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Margit Rosen | Of Bored Machines and Enthusiastic Humans. Gordon Pask and the Art of Conversation
DESCRIPTION:Nearly seven decades ago\, British cybernetician Gordon Pask (1928-1996) envisioned a world in which machines engaged humans in conversation. Pask\, who gained international fame in the 1950s for his innovative adaptive teaching machines\, created cybernetic devices and environments that not only adapted to humans\, but challenged them. Assuming that humans find it pleasurable to continuously develop new mental models of the behavior of their environment\, Pask developed devices that attempted to keep their human counterparts in a state of uncertainty. \nGordon Pask’s visionary concepts and projects were unique within cybernetics not least because of his close involvement with the arts. Not universities or research institutes\, but theaters and music halls were the experimental laboratory for Pask’s first cybernetic machines. By introducing key projects such as Musicolour (1953-1957)\, the “moody” light organ\, the Colloquy of Mobiles (1968)\, as well as his cybernetic contributions to the Fun Palace (1964)\, the visionary architectural project by Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood\, this talk situates Pask’s work in the context of the historical moment when the relationships of humans and machines in industrial societies began to change in light of the sudden availability of learning\, sensor-equipped devices. It shows how the cybernetician\, within the 1950s and 1960s\, oscillated between his artistic passions\, the need to respond to the individual and social challenges of automation\, the new role of humans as sources of error in civilian and military machine systems\, and his work on a new epistemological concept\, later called Conversation Theory. This talk aims to put up for discussion how we might relate to Pask’s early vision of a world of machines that behave in difficult or to some degree unpredictable ways\, that is to say to conversational machines that we may bore\, but which would always shield us from boredom. \nAbout Margit Rosen:\nMargit Rosen studied art history\, political science\, philosophy and media arts at the Ludwig Maximilians University Munich\, the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG)\, and the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne). \nIn 2016 she was appointed Head of Collections\, Archives & Research at ZKM. \nMargit Rosen taught at HfG | University of art And Design Karlsruhe\, at CAFA Beijing and is a faculty member of the Master’s program MediaArtHistories at the Danube University Krems. In 2011 and 2013\, she was a visiting professor at the Art Academy Münster. Her research\, publication activities as well as curatorial work is dedicated to the art of the 20th and 21st century\, especially the history and aesthetics of electronic arts. \nPart of the Fall 2023 Lecture Series.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/margit-rosen/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/1968-pask_colloquy-ICA-London.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20231021T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20231021T190000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20231002T200740Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240729T150735Z
UID:10580-1697914800-1697914800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Márton Orosz | György Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science
DESCRIPTION:György Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science\ndocumentary film by Márton Orosz\, Hungary–Canada\n97 min \nPart of the Fall 2023 Lecture Series. Film screening followed by Q+A with the filmmaker. \nCan technology save us from technology itself? “Can prosthetics be used to emulate the pageantry of nature and provide a viable alternative for building a sustainable world? \n“With the scientist’s brain\, the poet’s heart and the painter’s eye”—this was the proverb of the Hungarian-American artist\, educator\, and impresario György Kepes\, a forgotten precursor of media art. Kepes was among the first who used the term “visual culture” as an independent research subject in a contemporary sense. As the architect of the Light Workshop at the New Bauhaus/School of Design in Chicago in 1937 and as the founder and first director of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at MIT in 1967\, Kepes’s enterprise was to fill the gap between the humanities and the sciences. The powerful new tools he offered to “intersee” and “interthink” knowledge on a participatory basis proved to be the foundations of a program that defined the aesthetic agency of the ecological consciousness. \nMárton Orosz’s documentary film is the first comprehensive assessment of György Kepes’s animated life\, which introduces him not only as a shapeshifter of modernism but also as a polymath and visionary thinker whose legacy and faith in “optical democracy” grants him a pioneering role in the history of the Art and Technology Movement. \n  \nNon-ticketed event. It is free and open to the public. First come\, first served.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/marton-orosz-gyorgy-kepes-interthinking-art-science/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Kepes-film-poster_ENG_FINAL-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231021
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231117
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20231006T195435Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231006T201446Z
UID:10638-1697846400-1700179199@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Fall 2023 Lecture Series
DESCRIPTION:The Fall 2023 programming aims to revisit the foundational parameters of the Art\, Culture\, and Technology Program\, positioning ACT within the context of a changing world and its future challenges. By articulating key thematic avenues and methodological approaches that intersect the work of invited artists and ACT faculty members\, we link these inquiries to concerns of other researchers at MIT and beyond. \nSaturday\, October 21\nMárton Orosz | György Kepes. Interthinking Art + Science\n7pm\nBartos Theater (E15-070) \nMonday\, October 23\nMargit Rosen | Of Bored Machines and Enthusiastic Humans. Gordon Pask and the Art of Conversation\n6pm\nACT Cube (E15-001) \nThursday\, October 26\nSama Alshaibi\, Sadik Alfraji\, and Huma Gupta | From the Great Flood to the Great Migration\n6pm\nLong Lounge (7-429)\nIn collaboration with the Aga Khan Program and the Department of Architecture. \nThursday\, November 16\nSarah Kanouse | My Electric Genealogy\n6pm\nACT Cube (E15-001)\nIn collaboration with the Department of Architecture.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/fall-2023-lecture-series/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/gif:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Fall-2023-LS-Image-Compilation.gif
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230424T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230424T200000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20230330T155013Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230410T144030Z
UID:9546-1682359200-1682366400@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Frances Negrón-Muntaner | Valor y Cambio: Decolonizing Money in Puerto Rico
DESCRIPTION:In this event co-sponsored by CMSW\, ACT\, and ICEO\, Prof. Frances Negrón-Muntaner (Columbia University) will discuss the origins\, impact\, and future of the award-winning artivist project Valor y Cambio (Value/Valour and Change)\, in conversation with Prof. Katerina González Seligmann (University of Connecticut). \nStarting in Puerto Rico in 2019\, Valor y Cambio repurposed an old ATM to create an experience of a non-extractive economy by inventing a world where the central unit of economic value was storytelling. In exchange for a new currency that told stories that the artists valued\, participants told a story of what they valued. Participants could\, in turn\, exchange their bills for goods and services with local vendors whose stories the project shared via social media. Designed to offer a space for people to think together and out loud about common challenges\, the project emerged amidst Puerto Rico’s austerity crisis\, which has impoverished the population and unleashed the archipelago’s largest migration. Valor y Cambio then moved to New York City\, where it continued to spark a broad conversation about what is a just economy\, how to foster collective empowerment in the face of austerity\, and what are the roles of art\, narrative\, and technology in the process of building more equitable economies. \nThis event is co-sponsored by MIT Comparative Media Studies and Writing (CMSW)\, Art\, Culture\, and Technology (ACT) program at MIT\, and MIT Institute Community and Equity Office (ICEO). \nFrances Negrón-Muntaner\nFrances Negrón-Muntaner is a filmmaker\, writer\, scholar and professor at Columbia University\, where she is also the founding curator of the Latino Arts and Activism Archive and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities. Among her books and publications are: Boricua Pop: Puerto Ricans and the Latinization of American Culture (CHOICE Award\, 2004)\, The Latino Media Gap (2014)\, and Sovereign Acts: Contesting Colonialism in Native Nations and Latinx America (2017). She has received various recognitions\, including the United Nations’ Rapid Response Media Mechanism designation as a global expert in the areas of mass media and Latin/o American studies (2008); the Lenfest Award\, (2012)\, the Latin American Studies Association’s Frank Bonilla Public Intellectual Award (2019)\, and the Premio Borimix from the Society for Educational Arts in New York (2019). Negrón-Muntaner served as director of Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race from 2009-2016 and co-director of Unpayable Debt\, a working group that studied debt regimes in the world. Her most recent films and art works include War for Guam (2015)\, Life Outside (2016)\, and Valor y Cambio\, an art\, digital storytelling and just economy project in Puerto Rico and New York (valorymcambio.org). \nKaterina González Seligmann\nKaterina González Seligmann is a scholar of Caribbean literature and intellectual history and the author of Writing the Caribbean in Magazine Time (Rutgers University Press\, 2021). Katerina’s essays on literary magazines\, literary infrastructure\, and Caribbean textual and intellectual circulation also appear in MLN\, Small Axe\, South Atlantic Quarterly\, The Global South\, The Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies\, and Inti. Katerina is also a member of the Aimé Césaire research group of the Francophone manuscripts team at the École normale supérieure in Paris and a translator of contemporary Cuban literature. González Seligmann is Associate Professor of Literatures\, Cultures and Languages at the University of Connecticut Storrs and Director of El Instituto: Institute for Latina/o\, Caribbean\, and Latin American Studies.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/frances-negron-muntaner-valor-y-cambio/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/cover-1.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230410T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230410T193000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20230215T170533Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230410T154637Z
UID:9172-1681149600-1681155000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Jae Rhim Lee | What It’s Really About
DESCRIPTION:As part of Spring 2023 ACT Lecture Series and in collaboration with MIT Morningside Academy for Design\, this lecture will be held in person\, at 6 PM ET in The Cube (E15-001). The talk will feature  Aubrie James (SMACT ’24) as the respondent\, and curator-director of the MIT Morningside Academy for Design Roi Salgueiro Barrio as the moderator. \nJae Rhim Lee will discuss completed and works in progress as she illuminates the non-linear and overlapping processes of artistic research and human-centered design research that are often less legible and accessible\, yet form the backbone of transdisciplinary art and design practice. \nThis lecture is free and open to the public. Please register here\nJae Rhim is an artist\, designer\, and entrepreneur whose work reimagines the mundane and the profound—eating and bodily waste\, sleep\, death\, and consciousness. Her living units\, furniture\, wearables\, and designed experiences propose new and often unorthodox relationships between the mind/body/self and the built and natural environment. Jae Rhim invented the Infinity Burial Suit (“Mushroom Death Suit”)\, a new form of burial for people and pets. Her work has been featured in the National Geographic\, the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum\, Vogue\, Somerset House London\, Wired\, and the Aspen Ideas Festival. She is a TED Senior Fellow\, the founder of venture-backed startup Coeio\, Inc.\, and serves on the board of the Creative Capital Foundation. \n— \n\n\n\nAccessibility: Our events are enriched by your presence and we are committed to making them accessible. Please email mitmad@mit.edu to request accommodations.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/jae-rhim-lee-what-its-really-about/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Apollo2_James_patten_2008.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230302T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230302T193000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20230209T223416Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230301T013708Z
UID:9097-1677780000-1677785400@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Malkit Shoshan | Design Activism: Border Ecologies and the Architecture of UN Missions
DESCRIPTION:As part of MIT Architecture Spring 2023 public program in collaboration with MIT ACT\, this lecture will be held in person\, at 6 PM ET in Long Lounge (7-429)\, followed by a discussion with Huma Gupta (AKPIA)\, Bish Sanyal (DUSP) and Gediminas Urbonas (ACT) as respondents. \nIn the past decade\, the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST)\, led by Malkit Shoshan\, spearheaded several experimental projects at the intersection of design and activism. The lecture will explore if and how design can mobilize social and cultural change by making visible suppressed and hidden realities focusing on two case studies: The Silver Lion-winning presentation of Border Ecologies and the Gaza Strip at the Venice Architecture Biennale\, which traces the daily struggle of a small community of farmers living along one of the most militarized borders in the world\, and the project BLUE: The Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions (Actar\, 2023)\, which examines the impacts of United Nations missions on cities\, communities\, and the environment. FAST’s projects question the legitimacy and effectiveness of the institutions society put in place to support communities across the world in times of crisis. \nFAST’s cross-disciplinary and multiscalar projects deploy various design\, research\, engagement\, and advocacy strategies. As they share insights into the precarity of daily life and the struggle to confront entrenched bureaucracies\, they question the goals and effectiveness of powerful institutions and ask\, among others\, if and how public institutions can be shaped to center social and environmental justice and care. \nThis lecture is free and open to the public. Registration required to attend in-person. Register here or watch the webcast on YouTube.\nMalkit Shoshan\nMalkit Shoshan is a designer\, author\, and educator. She is the founding director of the Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory (FAST)\, which initiates and develops projects at the intersection of architecture\, urban planning and human rights. In her work\, she uses spatial design tools to make visible systemic violence\, engage with various publics to co-design alternatives that center social and environmental justice\, and advocate for systemic change. \nShoshan is the area head of Art\, Design\, and the Public Domain Master in Design Studies\, a design critic in Urban Planning at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design\, and a visiting scholar at NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge. She is the author and mapmaker of the award-winning book Atlas of the Conflict\, Israel-Palestine (010 Publishers\, 2011)\, the co-author of Village. One Land Two Systems and Platform Paradise (Damiani Editore\, 2014)\, and the author and illustrator of BLUE: The Architecture of UN Peacekeeping Missions (Actar\, 2023). Her additional publications include Zoo\, or the letter Z\, just after Zionism (NAiM\, 2012)\, Drone (DPR-Barcelona\, 2016)\, Spaces of Conflict (JapSam books\, 2016)\, Greening Peacekeeping: The Environmental Impact of UN Peace Operations (IPI\, 2018)\, and Retreat (DPR-Barcelona\, 2020). Her work has been published and exhibited internationally. In 2021\, she was awarded\, together with FAST\, the Silver Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale for their collaborative presentation Border Ecologies and the Gaza Strip. \nThis event is co-sponsored by the Department of Architecture at MIT. \nRespondents\nHuma Gupta\nHuma Gupta is Assistant Professor in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT. Gupta holds a PhD in the History and Theory of Architecture and a Master’s in City Planning from MIT. Currently\, she is writing her first book The Architecture of Dispossession\, which is based on her doctoral thesis on state-building and the architectural transformation of migrant reed-mat and mudbrick settlements in mid-century Iraq. Previously\, Gupta was the Neubauer Junior Research Fellow at Brandeis University\, Humanities Research Fellow at New York University-Abu Dhabi\, and International Dissertation Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Council. Her work has been published in the International Journal of Islamic Architecture\, Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World\, and Thresholds. As a practitioner\, she has worked on infrastructure projects in Afghanistan\, municipal planning in Syria\, eviction prevention and homelessness in the greater Boston area\, and UN agencies’ humanitarian response to housing needs for persons displaced due to climate\, conflict\, and development projects around the world. \nBish Sanyal\nBish Sanyal is the Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning and Director of the Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS)/Hubert Humphrey Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT from 1994 to 2002\, and was Chair of the MIT faculty from 2007 to 2009. Sanyal’s research\, teaching\, and academic leadership reflect his multidisciplinary education in architecture (BA) from IIT (Kharagpur)\, urban planning (MUP) from the University of Kansas\, and international development planning (PhD) from the University of California in Los Angeles. \nSanyal has published extensively on urban development\, particularly on the topic of spatial and economic integration of informal housing areas. He has also advised several bilateral and multilateral development agencies\, along with governments in South Asia\, Middle East\, Africa\, and Latin America. He serves on the editorial board of six leading professional journals. \nSanyal is the recipient of: MIT’s prestigious MacVicar Award for exemplary contributions to the education of undergraduates at MIT; the Gill-Chin Lim Global Award for research on international development; the inaugural award for leadership on international development planning by ACSP’s Global Planning Educator’s Interest Group. In 2022\, Sanyal received the highest professional honor – the Distinguished Educator Award\, by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP). \nGediminas Urbonas\nGediminas Urbonas is artist\, educator\, and co-founder of the Urbonas Studio (with Nomeda Urbonas)\, a transdisciplinary research practice that facilitates exchange amongst diverse nodes of knowledge production and artistic practice in pursuit of projects that transform civic spaces and collective imaginaries. Urbonas have exhibited internationally at the São Paulo (twice)\, Berlin\, Moscow (twice)\, Lyon\, Gwangju\, Busan\, Taipei Biennales\, Folkestone Triennial\, Manifesta and Documenta exhibitions\, including prize winning solo show at the Venice Biennale and MACBA in Barcelona. Their writing on artistic research as form of intervention into social and political crisis was published in the books Devices for Action (MACBA Press\, 2008)\, Villa Lituania (Sternberg Press\, 2008)\, and Public Space? Lost and Found (MIT Press\, 2017). Urbonas 5 year-long research project on Zooetics exploring the potential to connect with the noetics and poetics of non-human life in the context of the planetary ecological imbalance\, concluded in 2018 with the symposium at MIT and opened Climate Visions a new research lab. Urbonases curated the Swamp School – future learning environment at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale 2018. The book Swamps and the New Imagination: On the Future of Cohabitation in Art\, Architecture and Philosophy is forthcoming in 2023 with Sternberg Press.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/malkit-shoshan-design-activism-border-ecologies-and-the-architecture-of-un-missions/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/malkit_carousel.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221107T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221107T193000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20221024T190357Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221104T160428Z
UID:8659-1667844000-1667849400@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Ute Meta Bauer | Saying It Without Saying. Can a Biennale Be a Newspaper?: On The Process of Creating the 17th Istanbul Biennial
DESCRIPTION:Ute Meta Bauer | Saying It Without Saying. Can a Biennale Be a Newspaper?: On The Process of Creating the 17th Istanbul Biennial \nThe suspension of life-as-we-knew-it is a rare license to do things differently. Doing justice to this moment means resetting our expectations and our purposes\, reimagining our formats and making way for a fundamental questioning that is political and philosophical; for conversations\, intimate and public\, generous and trenchant. What is needed above all in this uncertain window is the confidence to try unfamiliar ways\, old and new\, of interacting with each other and with the world. \nEvent is free and open to the public. Please register HERE for building access.\nAbout:\nUte Meta Bauer is an educator and curator in the field of contemporary art. Since 2013\, she has been the Founding Director of NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore and a Professor in the School of Art\, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University\, where she co-chairs the Master in Museum Studies and Curatorial Practices. She was the director of the MIT Visual Arts Program from 2005 – 2009 and was the Founding Director of ACT\, where she served from 2009 – 2012. Bauer was the Artistic Director of the 3rd berlin biennale for contemporary art (2003-2004)\, Co-Curator of Documenta11 on the team of Okwui Enwezor (2000-2002)\, and  co-curated with MIT List Centre Visual Art Director Paul C. Ha the US Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015)\, featuring video and performance pioneer Joan Jonas. Her recent curatorial and editorial projects for NTU CCA Singapore include The Oceanic (2017/18)\, Tarek Atoui\, The Ground: From the Land to the Sea (2018)\, Trees of Life: Knowledge in Material (2018)\, Jef Geys – Quadra Medicinale Singapore (2018/19)\, Siah Armajani: Spaces for the Public. Spaces for Democracy (2019)\, The Posthuman City: Climates. Habitats. Environments. (2019/20)\, Non-Aligned (2020) and Trinh T. Minh-ha. Films. (2020/21); Climates.Habitats.Environments. co-published with The MIT Press (2022)\, as well as the two-part reprints of the legendary  i Press series edited by architects Mary Otis Stevens and Thomas McNulty (both MIT)\, The Ideal Communist City (1968\, 2022) and World of Variation (1970\, 2022). Bauer is currently curator of the Singapore Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) featuring artist Shubigi Rao\, and co-curator of the 17th Istanbul Biennial (2022) with filmmaker Amar Kanwar and art historian David Teh.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/ute-meta-bauer-saying-it-without-saying-can-a-biennale-be-a-newspaper-on-the-process-of-creating-the-17th-istanbul-biennial/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/02_17.IB_BreadandPuppet_SantralIstanbul_14092022_PhotoBy-DavidLevene_resized-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20221017T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20221017T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20221007T195848Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221011T141710Z
UID:8579-1666029600-1666029600@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Cooking Sections | When [Salmon Salmon [Salmon]]
DESCRIPTION:Farmed salmon are a constructed animal\, one of the most recently domesticated and industrialized species in human history. In this performative-lecture Cooking Sections reflect on their expansive body of work on the environmental impact of salmon farms which can be traced far beyond the circumference of open-net pens\, and everything that escapes through them. Salmon farms have transformed communities\, ecologies\, food webs\, and the way we see the world. Questioning what colors we expect in our ‘natural’ environment\, it asks us to examine how our perception of color is changing as we are changing the planet. \nLectures are free and open to the public. This lecture will be held on Monday\, October 17 at 6 PM ET in 7-429 (Long Lounge) and streamed online unless otherwise noted. Registration required to attend in-person. Register here or watch the webcast on Youtube. \nCooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe) is a duo of spatial practitioners. Their practice examines the systems that organize the world through food. Using site-responsive installation\, performance and video\, they explore the overlapping boundaries between art\, architecture\, ecology and geopolitics. \nTheir work has been exhibited at Tate Britain; Serpentine Galleries; SALT Beyoğlu\, Istanbul; Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh; Bonniers Konsthall\, Stockholm; 58th Venice Biennale; the U.S. Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale; 13th Shanghai Biennial; Prospect 5\, New Orleans; 2019 Sharjah Architecture Triennial and 13th Sharjah Biennial; Manifesta12\, Palermo; Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery\, Columbia University New York; Atlas Arts\, Skye; Storefront for Art & Architecture New York among others. They hold a research position and lead a studio unit at the Royal College of Art\, London\, and were guest professors at the Academy of Fine Arts\, Munich. \nThey have worked on multiple iterations of the long-term site-responsive CLIMAVORE project\, exploring how to eat as humans change climates\, for which they were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2021\, received the Special Prize at the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and were the finalists at the Visible Award for socially engaged practices. Daniel is the recipient of the 2020 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize for the research project Being Shellfish. \nThis event is co-sponsored by the Department of Architecture at MIT.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/cooking-sections-when-salmon-salmon-salmon/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Cooking-Sections_portrait-02_photo-Graeme-Robertson
_Tate_Salmon-A-Red-Herring.-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220919T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220919T190000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20220901T202800Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220915T213836Z
UID:8423-1663596000-1663614000@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Lundahl & Seitl | A Language of What May Not Be Said
DESCRIPTION:Between September 19-20 the artist duo Lundahl & Seitl will offer a studio showing of two works at ACT: Symphony of a Missing Room ( 2009 – ongoing)\, and The Memor (2019 – 2022) which was made with co-artist ScanLAB Projects.  \nThe visit is an invitation from Urbonas Studio and the MIT ACT program in collaboration with the Swedish Consulate and the Swedish Embassy including presentations at ACT and CMS/W (September 19-20)\, Swedish House in Washington DC (September 24-25)\, ONX Studio in New York (September 28 – October 2) where there is an artist talk and a conversation with Barabara London at Scandinavian House (October 2). \nAt the advent of the endemic\, the artists have chosen to present two artworks that\, each in a different way\, explore how technology lay the ground for the human umwelt: how it connects and disconnects us from each other and other life-forms and processes. To experience the artworks you will use VR technology\, sightless goggles\, and three-dimensional sound in headphones\, and you will get an instructed choreography of movement and synchronized touch from a guide. \nViewings will be on the half hour from 2-7pm. \nRegister here to experience the works!
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/lundahl-seitl-a-language-of-what-may-not-be-said/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Symphony-TunnelVision-momentum8.BiennaleofContemporaryArt-2015-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20220428T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20220428T180000
DTSTAMP:20260404T072344
CREATED:20220414T163748Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220414T174643Z
UID:7845-1651168800-1651168800@act.mit.edu
SUMMARY:Nida Sinnokrot | Palestine is not a Garden
DESCRIPTION:**Registration is REQUIRED via Eventbrite** \n**Live webcast link HERE**\n \nThe Garden\, in the context of Palestine\, conjures conflicting imaginaries of security and abundance\, of disobedience and control\, inside and outside\, and of exile and return. These binaries are the narrative components of the enclosures and infrastructures that have distinguished the Garden from untamed wilderness. As such\, the genealogy of the garden in Palestine can be read as a story of the loss of Commons (masha’); the colonial project of “making the dessert bloom”; and the rise of neoliberal politics\, bubble economics\, consumer debt and real estate speculation sweeping the West Bank today. \nContinued annexation\, greenwashing\, and destructive notions of progress have all but wiped out the memory of an indigenous mythology once deeply rooted in an embodied\, balanced stewardship of nature. How can the merging of artistic methodologies with agricultural practices address this loss of cultural capital in Palestine?  To explore this question\, I will present two bodies of artwork. The first is a set of works made in Palestine over the past several years. The second is Sakiya\, my art and agriculture initiative on a rewilded hillside on the outskirts of Ramallah. Together these projects explore ways that collective action can decolonize the social\, political\, economic and narrative structures that govern our relationship to nature and to what a ‘garden’ can be. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNida Sinnokrot\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNida Sinnokrot is an artist and educator whose work explores how various forms of power and bias are embedded in dominant narrative structures and attendant articulations of time and space. Working across film\, video\, photography\, sculpture\, installation\, and agriculture\, Nida seeks to expose and cannibalize -through tactile\, tactical and material acts of technical and conceptual detournement- various technologies of control that give rise to shifting social\, political and environmental instabilities. Nida is a co-founder of Sakiya – Art | Science | Agriculture\, an international residency program and research platform in the West Bank village of Ein Qinya\, and a faculty member of the Art\, Culture\, and Technology program at MIT (ACT) in Cambridge\, Massachusetts. \n\nThis event is part of ACT’s Spring 2022 Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by the MIT Department of Architecture.
URL:http://act.mit.edu/event/nida-sinnokrot-palestine-is-not-a-garden/
CATEGORIES:Events & Exhibitions,Lecture Series
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:http://act.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Nida_Sinnokrot_Twitter_SM.jpeg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR