REGISTRATION FOR THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW CLOSED.

Who doesn’t love colorful blinking lights? In this 2 session workshop we will look at how Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) work, how to connect and power them, and a variety of ways to control and animate them. Whether you’re looking for a simple indicator light or an art display with 100s of LEDs, this workshop will get you started. Students will be introduced to microcontrollers and CircuitPython, but no prior electronics or programming experience is required.  You will, however, need to bring a laptop.

This is a 2 session workshop, plan to attend both dates. Enrollment is limited and registration is required.

Join MHH for a Lego break! We will have snacks, drinks, and plenty of Legos to create your masterpiece. Take a picture of your creation and tag us on social media to be entered in a drawing for an MIT Values t-shirt.

No registation required! 

Fundamentals of Chinese brush paintings for novices and experienced painter alike. We will cover the classical four gentlemen for novices and go onto more advanced topics. Emphasis will be on brush stroke techniques and composition of the subject matters.

CAST Visiting Artist @lbert Figurt invites you to a full-immersion theater workshop centered on our multifaceted relationship with screen-based devices. 

Profiting from a dedicated studio space in the Theater Arts building, participants will engage in a convivial brainstorming in order to share their idiosyncratic digital routines, confront personal computerized emotions and ultimately remix tics, obsessions and fears in as many unexpected performative stimuli. 

Little by little, with Albert helping in the guise of a facilitator / co-creator (rather than a director / choreographer), the scattered fragments will be then orchestrated and assembled into a minimal, multimedia theatrical outcome — to be presented at the very end of the day for a small audience.

Open to all members of the MIT community (students, staff, faculty, alumni)

Capped at 15 participants

No experience necessary, just bring a sense of curiosity and a willingness to explore. Guests of participants are welcome to attend the showcase at the end of the day. 

Presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology and supported by the Alan W. Katzenstein (1942) Memorial Fund, with thanks to MIT Comparative Media Studies / Writing and MIT Music and Theater Arts.

Learn more and register

What is holography? It's not just beautiful art – it's also a range of measurement techniques that let you record a 3D light field. Come learn the theory of wave optics, interference, and diffraction, and then make your own holograms in our hands-on lab! See what your favorite image looks like when turned into a computer-generated hologram. We'll also do demos and visit the newly renovated MIT Museum, home of the world's most comprehensive collection of holographic art. No prior background required. Must register by 12/22/2023.

Email holography@ll.mit.edu to register. Limit 30 students. NOTE: All 5 class sessions are required.

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center for a screening of Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray directed and produced by Kristi Zea.

This intimate portrait of painter and printmaker, Elizabeth Murray, explores the relationship between her family life and career, and reconsiders her place in contemporary art history. The MIT List Visual Arts Center hosted a solo-presentation of Elizabeth Murray’s work in 1987, and in 2005, Murray was the fifth woman to be celebrated with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Best known for her fragmented and shaped canvases, Elizabeth Murray makes paintings that are neither fully abstract nor representational. They are also not truly paintings, as their eccentric compositions and varied materials are often suggestive of sculpture, with Cast-a-way as a prime example. Learn more through a short presentation about Elizabeth Murray’s work and connection to MIT's campus prior to the film screening. 

This winter, the List Center will be taking a deeper look at the lives and work of select artists within our Public Art Collection. 

This program is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special four-week term at MIT. IAP 204 begins on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends on Friday, February 2, 2024. Guests from outside the MIT community are welcome to attend all in-person events.

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center for a screening of the documentary Nevelson in Process, 1977 a film by Susan Fanshel and Jill Godmilow. 

This documentary is part of the Met’s Museum extensive moving-image archive. The artist Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) was known for her elaborate and monumental sculptures made of found materials such as discarded wood and scrap metal. In 1975, Louise Nevelson’s Transparent Horizon was the first Percent-for-Art commission at MIT, an initiative that began in 1968 that allocates a portion of the budget from each new building project or major renovation to the purchase or commission of art for Public Space. Learn more through a short presentation about Louise Nevelson’s work and connection to MIT’s campus prior to the film screening. 

This winter, the List Center will be taking a deeper look at the lives and work of select artists within our Public Art Collection. 

This program is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special four-week term at MIT. IAP 204 begins on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends on Friday, February 2, 2024. Guests from outside the MIT community are welcome to attend all in-person events.

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center for a screening of the documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald.

This awe-inspiring film received a Sundance Grand Jury Prize nomination. The Chinese artist, Cai Guo-Qiang, tells us the true story behind Sky Ladder, a piece carried out in secret in a small Chinese fishing village under cover of night. In 2010, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Ring Stone  was commissioned to celebrate the MIT Sloan School of Management’s educational and cultural ties with China. Learn more through a short presentation about Cai Guo-Qiang’s work and connection to MIT's campus prior to the film screening. 

This winter, the List Center will be taking a deeper look at the lives and work of select artists within our Public Art Collection. 

This program is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special four-week term at MIT. IAP 204 begins on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends on Friday, February 2, 2024. Guests from outside the MIT community are welcome to attend all in-person events.

Class runs from January 10-26, 2024, MWF 1-5 pm.

The workshop, 'Setting the Table — Representing HER' spans three weeks and focuses on equipping students with the necessary tools to create a zine booklet featured at the Shift+W Represent HER - The Female Architect exhibit in the Keller Gallery next spring.

During our initial week, we'll engage in exercises centered on table conversations and research techniques. Moving into the second week, we would delve into various forms of representation, aiding students in expressing their intentions and motivations. In our third week, participants will gain design skills to craft a visually captivating zine showcasing their thorough research and visual work.

The workshop explores how gender diversity influences design by examining the interplay between female architectural representation and broader societal implications.

Sign-up by Friday, January 5, 2024.

Digital photography opens up a multitude of ways of working with multiple exposures. In this course, we’ll use digital cameras and Photoshop to produce composite images using a variety of strategies, including layering, collaging, and stitching. No prior experience with Photoshop is necessary, and a basic introduction to working with digital mirrorless cameras will be given. A laptop capable of running Adobe Photoshop is required for the course. MIT affiliates may download Photoshop for free through MIT’s Adobe Creative Cloud license.

This 4 week intermediate/advanced workshop will have us explore unusual forming techniques and surprising surface treatments that take us beyond the “round”. Oval, wavy, stretched or crazy, the teapot is a wonderful subject that will show us a balance between functionality and creativity.  Would you like one lump or two?

During this 4 week intermediate/advanced level workshop, we will focus on several pitcher forms.  With an emphasis on handles and spouts, we will learn composition as well as the functionality of one of mankind’s earliest functional forms.  With time permitting, several surface decorating techniques will also be introduced before bisque firing.

This course provides an intensive introduction to the fundamentals and processes of representational drawing. Students will engage with, and explore, a plethora of drawing methodologies such as mark-making, layering, additive/subtractive drawing, and the articulation of line, shape, volume, weight, gesture, and composition. This class will use charcoal as the primary drawing material, and after guided technical exercises students will take their skills and apply it through the rendering of a complex still life.

This 4 week workshop will introduce you to the basics of wheel throwing, trimming and glazing.  Learn basic techniques that will allow you to confidently create on the potter’s wheel.

This course provides an introduction to how physical computation can be utilized within an artistic practice. Students will be introduced to the Arduino IDE and basic principles of circuits, and will learn how to use different motors, sensors, and displays. At the end of the four weeks, students will have created an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for their computational works and understand the process of ideation, making schematics, and best practices for electronics arts.

In Lo-Fi Pictures, we will begin by exploring the most fundamental forms of the camera: pinhole and box cameras. Students will construct cameras using low-cost and found materials and use their cameras to develop and print analog photographs using darkroom processes. We’ll look at images that use aberration, blur, and other optical “defects” to work outside conventions of photographic fidelity. Finally, we’ll look at the digital scanner as a tool for image-making, rather than only reproduction. With each of these processes, students will share and discuss the photographs they make. No prior experience is required.

This intermediate studio course is designed for scientists and engineers conducting research who want to bridge the gap between their academic topics of interest with representation in a visual language. We will approach the process of making art from a scientific framework, emphasizing research, experimentation, and reflection. Students will be prompted to develop a series of works that stem from their research practices, and think about how their materials and artistic processes can relay information within the sciences. We will spend the first class talking about our research and how you plan to make a body of work about a specific concern, before making a plan for production. Classes will include discussions about artists who work at the intersection of art and science/technology, and the class schedule may involve trips to see relevant exhibitions (to be announced to students 1-2 weeks prior). Students may work within the realms of abstraction or representation, but should have prior experience in working within these respective fields as foundational techniques will not be covered.

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the mug. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a mug fit for you, a family member, or even a friend! If you drink coffee or tea and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the mug. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a mug fit for you, a family member, or even a friend! If you drink coffee or tea and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the mug. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a mug fit for you, a family member, or even a friend! If you drink coffee or tea and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

This course provides an overview of the process of painting portraits, focusing on composition, color, values, and textures. Although the class will be grounded in representational painting, students will be given the flexibility to incorporate abstraction into their works to create a striking and dynamic image. Students will learn important skills in painting such as creating underpaintings, mixing warm/cool palettes, and glazing. Students will leave this course with a deeper understanding on the approaches to portrait painting and will finish a painting at the conclusion of our time together.

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the bowl. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a bowl fit for you, a family member or even a friend!  If you like cereal, soups, and salads and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the bowl. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a bowl fit for you, a family member or even a friend!  If you like cereal, soups, and salads and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

This 4 week workshop will introduce you to the basics of wheel throwing, trimming and glazing.  Learn basic techniques that will allow you to confidently create on the potter’s wheel.

This 4 week workshop will introduce you to the basics of wheel throwing, trimming and glazing.  Learn basic techniques that will allow you to confidently create on the potter’s wheel.

Come sing with the MIT Women’s Chorale!  We are a concert choir open to women from all portions of the MIT community. Rehearsals for our spring season will be held on Wednesdays from 7-9 pm in the main building complex at MIT, beginning on January 17. Our talented and enthusiastic music director, Nhung Truong, supports our philosophy, that we are serious about making music and serious about enjoying making music. Join our welcoming group as we prepare for our May program, which will include the lovely Missa Brevis by Delibes, small works by Handel,  and an exciting piece by Elaine Hagenberg. 

We ask that prospective singers contact us before the first rehearsal:  mitwc@mit.edu.  

Further details are available on our website.
https://web.mit.edu/womensleague/womenschorale/

Not a Metallurgy class! This veteran crash-course is coming back in full force and will have you head banging, air guitaring, and devil horn raising in no time! Learn everything you ever wanted to know about Heavy Metal, including how Metallica continues to evolve, why Lemmy IS God (RIP), how the genre tackles some of today's biggest sociopolitical challenges, why metal bands exist in every country on Earth, and why you're probably already a metalhead without even knowing it.  

WARNING: This series most definitely goes to 11!  Earplugs optional.

We'll look at metal cultures, explore the fringes of the most extreme forms of metal, and, of course, listen to some SCREAMING HEAVY METAL! This is guaranteed to be the most BRUTAL class ever offered at MIT! Anyone is welcome to join, and since we're remote again this year, seating isn't limited. Learn more about this series' past in the class archive!

Heavy Metal 101: Music and Culture

Monday January 15, 2024

An introduction to Heavy Metal. Topics include the musicology of Heavy Metal as well as an examination of Heavy Metal culture. This multimedia extravaganza covers everything you ever wanted to know about Heavy Metal!

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Music as Emotional Catharsis with Jason McMaster

Tuesday January 16, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Jason McMaster. Jason McMaster, metal vocalist from bands including Watchtower and Dangerous Toys, will delve into the unique ways heavy metal serves as a form of emotional release and a coping mechanism for millions worldwide. Also a seasoned School of Rock educator for the past 18 years, Jason will discuss the process of song creation, from the intellectual spark to the physical act of crafting melodies with wood and wires, and how this genre has evolved into a therapeutic art form.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Guitar Tablature Generation with Deep Learning with Pedro Sarmento

Wednesday January 17, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Pedro Sarmento. Within the field of symbolic music generation with deep learning, most works focus on MIDI representations, but less attention has been paid to guitar-focused symbolic music using digital tablatures. Guitar Pro format tablatures are a type of digital music notation that encapsulates information about guitar playing techniques and fingerings. Tablatures are often the preferred way of notating music digitally amongst the rock and metal communities.  This presentation will showcase the findings concerning the generation of multi-instrument compositions in Guitar Pro with Transformer architectures. The talk will focus on (1) the DadaGP dataset, a corpus of Guitar Pro tablature data suitable for sequence models, (2) GTR-CTRL, conditioning methods for Transformer models for the task of guitar tablature generation that allow for control over instrumentation and musical genre, (3) ShredGP, methods for guitarist-style conditioned guitar tablature generation with Transformers and (4) ProgGP, a practice-based research approach for creating AI-generated but human-produced prog metal music.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Innovating Metal Music with Technology with Jordan Rudess - LIVE In-Person and Online!

Thursday January 18, 2024

This class will take place online in-person on MIT's Campus in room 35-225 and will be livestreamed (if possible) and recorded for later viewing.

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Jordan Rudess. Jordan Rudess, keyboardist for the progressive metal band Dream Theater and founder of Wizdom Music will share his expertise on the fusion of technology and metal music. Focusing on the innovative use of Riffler, an app for creating copyright-free guitar riffs, Jordan will also invite conversation regarding the roles of artificial intelligence and creativity in musical performance. This class will be an opportunity to gain insights from a pioneer in the integration of digital technology in metal music.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions with Joan Jocson-Singh and Julie Turley

Monday January 22, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturers, Joan Jocson-Singh and Julie Turley. The book Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions is an exploration of women and heavy music and the ways in which women have historically engaged with musicking as mothers. Julie Turley and Joan Jocson-Singh, musicking mothers themselves, largely employ an ethnographic lens, foregrounded in powerful one-on-one original interviews as vignettes that narrate thematic patterns. Other chapters examine motherhood identity embedded in respective published rock music memoirs, discussions of rock performance as a site of maternal bonding, and themes that arise when heavy music mothers write about motherhood.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

The Physics of Shred with Dr. Gore

Tuesday January 23, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Dr. Gore. Dr. Gore’s session will focus on the relationship between the physics of the electric guitar and the characteristic sounds of heavy metal guitars. Topics covered will include pickup design and placement, natural and artificial harmonics, multiscale/”fanned fret” guitars, the boons and banes of nonlinearity, and why distortion is so integral to the “heavy metal sound.” Dr. Gore will also perform some shredtastic demonstrations of each of these principles along the way.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

History of Heavy Metal: Part I

Wednesday January 24, 2024

A seminar examining the history of Heavy Metal from the late 1960s through the early 1990s. Topics will include Hard Rock, Archetypal Heavy Metal, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM).

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Interested in submitting a short video for the "MIT in 3:00" competition, but want to learn more about DIY cinematography? Join MIT CAST Visiting Artist / Visiting Scholar Alberto Angelini (pka Albert Figurt) for a 2-session workshop about the art & craft of guerrilla filmmaking! 

On January 9 we will focus on camerawork (frame composition, point-of-view strategies, basic lightning & sound recording), so that you can start thinking in purely audiovisual terms and arrange your storytelling skills around the very language of moving images.

On January 11 we will dive into the magic of movie editing, exploring the practice of effectively "frankensteining" [read: remixing 'n' reinventing] the very footage you previously captured on the non-linear digital cutting table. 

Bring your own laptop with Premiere Pro installed. 

Open to the entire MIT Community. 

Limited to 18 participants. 

Register here. 

If registration is closed, email mitin3@mit.edu to be added to the waitlist. 

- - -

Schedule:

Tuesday, January 9 & Thursday, January 11, 2pm-7pm 
iHQ 3rd Floor (Building E38)
Register: https://forms.gle/uyFX9q3sWpmQ8bJE6
 

About the Competition

Inspired by Antje Ehmann’s and Harun Farocki’s world-wide video project “Labour in a Single Shot,” which explored the subject of work through short video clips, MIT in 3:00 asks competitors — What is your MIT? And can you show it in 3 minutes?
 

About the Instructor

Alberto Angelini (pka Albert Figurt) is an Italian videomaker, musician and independent researcher. Since 2005 he has worked as a director and screenwriter both for TV and documentaries, while also presenting video-art installations and experimental theatre pièces all over Europe. He has taught within several study abroad programs in Italy, organizing “Expanded Video Editing” and “DIY Guerrilla Filmmaking” seminars for American exchange students. Alberto is a visiting artist with the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and taught the practice-based course 21W.752 Making Documentary in Fall 2023. 

The three-week course delves into advanced sound production techniques for creating music, utilizing a combination of physical materials and digital tools, including basic Arduino programming, Ableton Live, and miniAudicle software. Participants will explore innovative approaches to composition, with a focus on crafting new music, designing installations, and engaging with electronic music.

This is a virtual workshop and we will have a brief performance session in each class. If you want to join the performance, please bring your instruments and electronics.

This class is organized by Duhan Zhang & Piyawat Louilarpprasert. Please feel free to email with questions and accommodation needs.

Please RSVP here: https://forms.gle/MjbmnhTJWhPq8FX9A

Free to public Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/95009123117,

Meeting ID: 950 0912 3117,

International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/acCAQ0uKeO, join by SIP: 95009123117@zoomcrc.com,

join by Skype for Business: https://mit.zoom.us/skype/95009123117”
 

---

Lesson 1:
Fundamental of Music, Inspiration from Machine to Sound and Digitalization 
- Musical Aesthetic in Music and Machine, a brief history
- Creating sound through Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), using Audacity (free software)
 
Lesson 2: 
Sound Art, Coding and Music
- rethinking sound, making composition
- creating music with numbers and codes, using mini Audicle chuck (free software)
 
Lesson 3: 
Integration, Multimedia, and Discussion on Sound Installation
- presentation on a new mechanical installation
- collaboration and between composers, engineers, and visual artists
- round table discussion and performance/demonstration

Pleasures of Poetry meets this IAP 2024 in 14E-304 from 1-2 p.m. every weekday from January 8-26, with the exception of MLK Jr. Day (Jan. 15). This popular activity – which aims to reach all those with an interest in poetry, regardless of experience level – has been offered every IAP for several decades. This will be the 28th year of Pleasures of Poetry at MIT. Each one-hour session is devoted to a poet or two, often a single poem, chosen by session leaders who volunteer to facilitate conversation for that day. Collaborative close reading is the aim and ideal of each hour. Some participants attend every session, but many others may drop in only once or twice during the series to discuss a favorite poet or poem, or to discover new favorites. The roster of poets is typically diverse — from classic Chinese poets to American poets laureate, and from such canonical figures as Shakespeare, Keats, Dickinson, and Bishop to contemporary poets including Louise Glück, Joy Harjo, Terrence Hayes, and many more. 

Free and open to the public; as well as staff, alumni, and students.

Pleasures of Poetry 2024 Poetry Booklet PDF 

Schedule: January 8 – January 26
(with the exception of MLK Day January 15th)
Building 14, 14E-304 @ 1:00-2:00pm

-

Mon 8 Stephen Tapscott and Tom Özden-Schilling
"An American Sunrise” by Joy Harjo

Tues 9 Peter Shor
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” by William Wordsworth
“Immortality” by Matthew Arnold
"Reply to Mr. Wordsworth” by Archibald MacLeish

Wed 10 Mark Hessler
"Retreating Light”
“Grace”
"Parable" by Louise Glück

Thurs 11 Ben Mangrum
“sort by day, burn by night” Rita Wong

Fri 12 Avery Nguyen
”Triptych (#3)” by Diana Khoi Nguyen
“The Last Prom Queen in Antarctica” by Ocean Vuong

Mon 15 MLK Jr. Day (Institute Closed)

Tues 16 Anne Hudson
"Good Bones"
"Poem Beginning with a Line from Basho” by Maggie Smith

Wed 17 Moderator
"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning

Thurs 18 Sandy Alexandre
”Abecedarian for Alzheimer's" by Joy Priest

Fri 19 Arthur Bahr
"Caelica - Sonnet 100” by Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

Mon 22 Elizabeth Doran
"Et quoi penser du silence? (And What to Think of Silence?)"
"à toi (to you)" by Alejandra Pizarnik

Tues 23 Marah Gubar and Kieran Setiya
“Blocks World: The Lobster” by Emma Catherine Perry

Wed 24 Bronwen Heuer
"La loba (The She-Wolf)"
"Tú me quieres blanca (You Want Me White)"
"Cuadrados y ángulos (Squares and Angles)"
"Hombre pequeñito (Little Tiny Man)" by Alfonsina Storni

Thurs 25 Kevin McLellen
"States" by Kevin McLellan

Fri 26 Jessica Ruffin
“Spirit Matters” by Peter Rose

The Creature: Walking Garbage

Non-Credit IAP 2024 Workshop

January 10^th to 12^th, WRF 9:00-12:00; @3-415 

The garbage needs more attention! 

In “Purity and Danger," Mary Douglas claimed that waste is not a static group of items but rather the outcome of classification and relationships¹. This concept extends beyond mere physical attributes, also encompassing how the self is molded and identified through interactions with waste. Consequently, our waste disposal methods are intimately connected to our individual styles, emphasizing the influence of waste management on shaping cultural identities and subjectivity. The way we do it reflects an ethos, a manner of being².

This three-day workshop explores trash as a useful material to be crafted, digitalized, and animated. Through tutorials to digital tools, hands-on making, and interactive exercises, participants will be introduced to the importance of materials, representation, and data in evaluating the impact of waste as resources and ultimately propose effective measures to redesign the matter out of place.

Tools and materials are ALL provided (also food). We also would love to see your personal touch if you want to bring your garbage piece that speaks to you. :) 

NOTES 

1. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). 

2. Hawkins, Gay. The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.  

Instructors: 

Yiqing WANG, March; Biru CAO, SMArchS Computation 

Sponsor: 

MindHandHeart Innovation Fund

Please sign up here or scan the QR code in the attached poster if you are interested in participating in the workshop.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to email yiqingw@mit.edu

​Schedule:

How do we transform garbage into a living creature? We are introducing a new workflow combining hands-on artwork-making and digitalization techniques from 3D scanning to AI-generated rigging will be introduced.

Day one: Gather your chosen discarded items—desired or otherwise. We'll guide you through using the 3D scanning tool.

Day two: Paper mache creation. Shape your trash into a mesh, both manually and through 3D scanning.

Day three: Animate your paper mache with generative AI!

What you can learn:

Matter to Data via 3D-scan

Modeling skills and building paper mache

Basic Rigging and Animation

Dynamics of Waste

Your work will be announced in the Trash-to-Treasure competition project sponsored by the MindHandHeart Innovation Fund next semester.

Looking forward to having you!

RSVP HERE

Not all Buddhists meditate, in fact, some do not meditate at all!... Then, what do the Buddhists do and what do the Buddhists believe in? Can we really generalize their practices and beliefs? What comes with the tradition do we lose when focusing mostly and heavily on meditation alone? 

This three day introductory IAP takes you into the fun, vibrant, ornamented, messy, breathing, controversial Theravāda Buddhism, one of the earliest kinds of Buddhism, which is still practiced in some parts of Southeast Asia and in Sri Lanka. The course focuses on Thailand and Myanmar through the eyes of Theravāda Buddhists. 

You will learn basic knowledge and vocabs to talk about the tradition like scriptures, teachings, and practices. You will be introduced to some complex issues and questions regarding the tradition. Comments, questions, concerns, and dialogues are welcome. On the last day, there will be home-cooked Thai food for everyone while the conversation focusing on food and faith. 

No background in anything is needed! Just be ready to step into the world of the unseens, animals, ghosts, relics, flowers, dust, and magics where time doesn't work the same way you're familiar with. 

Session 1: January 24 (Wednesday) 7-9 pm W11-155  Theme: The Pāli Canon and the Theravāda World through the eyes of Theravāda Buddhists

Session 2: January 25 (Thursday) 7-9 pm W11-155 Theme: Theravāda Buddhism and its relationship with other traditions in present days Thailand

Session 3: January 30 (Thursday) 6-8pm + home-cooked Thai food will be provided W11-190 Theme: Food and Faith

All sections are led by Saly Sirothphiphat an MDiv II student at Harvard Divinity School, a Thai Theravāda Buddhist and Win Kyaw Harvard Divinity School MTS '22 who studies Myanmar and Theravāda Buddhism. 

Hosted by the Addir Interfaith Dialogue Program

For IAP, the MIT Urban Planning Film Series will bring three special films to the screen, preceded by brief introductions, followed by short Q&A/discussions:

• Monday, Jan 8: Street Scene (Vidor, 1931)
• Thursday, Jan 18: The Lower Depths (Kurosawa, 1957)
• Monday, Jan 22: Hester Street (Silver, 1975)

All shows begin at 6pm, MIT room 3-133.  MIT community only.

See you at the movies...!

Come sing with the MIT Women’s Chorale!  We are a concert choir open to women from all portions of the MIT community. Rehearsals for our spring season will be held on Wednesdays from 7-9 pm in the main building complex at MIT, beginning on January 17. Our talented and enthusiastic music director, Nhung Truong, supports our philosophy, that we are serious about making music and serious about enjoying making music. Join our welcoming group as we prepare for our May program, which will include the lovely Missa Brevis by Delibes, small works by Handel,  and an exciting piece by Elaine Hagenberg. 

We ask that prospective singers contact us before the first rehearsal:  mitwc@mit.edu.  

Further details are available on our website.
https://web.mit.edu/womensleague/womenschorale/

What is holography? It's not just beautiful art – it's also a range of measurement techniques that let you record a 3D light field. Come learn the theory of wave optics, interference, and diffraction, and then make your own holograms in our hands-on lab! See what your favorite image looks like when turned into a computer-generated hologram. We'll also do demos and visit the newly renovated MIT Museum, home of the world's most comprehensive collection of holographic art. No prior background required. Must register by 12/22/2023.

Email holography@ll.mit.edu to register. Limit 30 students. NOTE: All 5 class sessions are required.

Fundamentals of Chinese brush paintings for novices and experienced painter alike. We will cover the classical four gentlemen for novices and go onto more advanced topics. Emphasis will be on brush stroke techniques and composition of the subject matters.

Pleasures of Poetry meets this IAP 2024 in 14E-304 from 1-2 p.m. every weekday from January 8-26, with the exception of MLK Jr. Day (Jan. 15). This popular activity – which aims to reach all those with an interest in poetry, regardless of experience level – has been offered every IAP for several decades. This will be the 28th year of Pleasures of Poetry at MIT. Each one-hour session is devoted to a poet or two, often a single poem, chosen by session leaders who volunteer to facilitate conversation for that day. Collaborative close reading is the aim and ideal of each hour. Some participants attend every session, but many others may drop in only once or twice during the series to discuss a favorite poet or poem, or to discover new favorites. The roster of poets is typically diverse — from classic Chinese poets to American poets laureate, and from such canonical figures as Shakespeare, Keats, Dickinson, and Bishop to contemporary poets including Louise Glück, Joy Harjo, Terrence Hayes, and many more. 

Free and open to the public; as well as staff, alumni, and students.

Pleasures of Poetry 2024 Poetry Booklet PDF 

Schedule: January 8 – January 26
(with the exception of MLK Day January 15th)
Building 14, 14E-304 @ 1:00-2:00pm

-

Mon 8 Stephen Tapscott and Tom Özden-Schilling
"An American Sunrise” by Joy Harjo

Tues 9 Peter Shor
"Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” by William Wordsworth
“Immortality” by Matthew Arnold
"Reply to Mr. Wordsworth” by Archibald MacLeish

Wed 10 Mark Hessler
"Retreating Light”
“Grace”
"Parable" by Louise Glück

Thurs 11 Ben Mangrum
“sort by day, burn by night” Rita Wong

Fri 12 Avery Nguyen
”Triptych (#3)” by Diana Khoi Nguyen
“The Last Prom Queen in Antarctica” by Ocean Vuong

Mon 15 MLK Jr. Day (Institute Closed)

Tues 16 Anne Hudson
"Good Bones"
"Poem Beginning with a Line from Basho” by Maggie Smith

Wed 17 Moderator
"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning

Thurs 18 Sandy Alexandre
”Abecedarian for Alzheimer's" by Joy Priest

Fri 19 Arthur Bahr
"Caelica - Sonnet 100” by Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke

Mon 22 Elizabeth Doran
"Et quoi penser du silence? (And What to Think of Silence?)"
"à toi (to you)" by Alejandra Pizarnik

Tues 23 Marah Gubar and Kieran Setiya
“Blocks World: The Lobster” by Emma Catherine Perry

Wed 24 Bronwen Heuer
"La loba (The She-Wolf)"
"Tú me quieres blanca (You Want Me White)"
"Cuadrados y ángulos (Squares and Angles)"
"Hombre pequeñito (Little Tiny Man)" by Alfonsina Storni

Thurs 25 Kevin McLellen
"States" by Kevin McLellan

Fri 26 Jessica Ruffin
“Spirit Matters” by Peter Rose

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the mug. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a mug fit for you, a family member, or even a friend! If you drink coffee or tea and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

For IAP, the MIT Urban Planning Film Series will bring three special films to the screen, preceded by brief introductions, followed by short Q&A/discussions:

• Monday, Jan 8: Street Scene (Vidor, 1931)
• Thursday, Jan 18: The Lower Depths (Kurosawa, 1957)
• Monday, Jan 22: Hester Street (Silver, 1975)

All shows begin at 6pm, MIT room 3-133.  MIT community only.

See you at the movies...!

The three-week course delves into advanced sound production techniques for creating music, utilizing a combination of physical materials and digital tools, including basic Arduino programming, Ableton Live, and miniAudicle software. Participants will explore innovative approaches to composition, with a focus on crafting new music, designing installations, and engaging with electronic music.

This is a virtual workshop and we will have a brief performance session in each class. If you want to join the performance, please bring your instruments and electronics.

This class is organized by Duhan Zhang & Piyawat Louilarpprasert. Please feel free to email with questions and accommodation needs.

Please RSVP here: https://forms.gle/MjbmnhTJWhPq8FX9A

Free to public Zoom link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/95009123117,

Meeting ID: 950 0912 3117,

International Numbers: https://mit.zoom.us/u/acCAQ0uKeO, join by SIP: 95009123117@zoomcrc.com,

join by Skype for Business: https://mit.zoom.us/skype/95009123117”
 

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Lesson 1:
Fundamental of Music, Inspiration from Machine to Sound and Digitalization 
- Musical Aesthetic in Music and Machine, a brief history
- Creating sound through Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), using Audacity (free software)
 
Lesson 2: 
Sound Art, Coding and Music
- rethinking sound, making composition
- creating music with numbers and codes, using mini Audicle chuck (free software)
 
Lesson 3: 
Integration, Multimedia, and Discussion on Sound Installation
- presentation on a new mechanical installation
- collaboration and between composers, engineers, and visual artists
- round table discussion and performance/demonstration

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the mug. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a mug fit for you, a family member, or even a friend! If you drink coffee or tea and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the mug. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a mug fit for you, a family member, or even a friend! If you drink coffee or tea and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

In Lo-Fi Pictures, we will begin by exploring the most fundamental forms of the camera: pinhole and box cameras. Students will construct cameras using low-cost and found materials and use their cameras to develop and print analog photographs using darkroom processes. We’ll look at images that use aberration, blur, and other optical “defects” to work outside conventions of photographic fidelity. Finally, we’ll look at the digital scanner as a tool for image-making, rather than only reproduction. With each of these processes, students will share and discuss the photographs they make. No prior experience is required.

Interested in submitting a short video for the "MIT in 3:00" competition, but want to learn more about DIY cinematography? Join MIT CAST Visiting Artist / Visiting Scholar Alberto Angelini (pka Albert Figurt) for a 2-session workshop about the art & craft of guerrilla filmmaking! 

On January 9 we will focus on camerawork (frame composition, point-of-view strategies, basic lightning & sound recording), so that you can start thinking in purely audiovisual terms and arrange your storytelling skills around the very language of moving images.

On January 11 we will dive into the magic of movie editing, exploring the practice of effectively "frankensteining" [read: remixing 'n' reinventing] the very footage you previously captured on the non-linear digital cutting table. 

Bring your own laptop with Premiere Pro installed. 

Open to the entire MIT Community. 

Limited to 18 participants. 

Register here. 

If registration is closed, email mitin3@mit.edu to be added to the waitlist. 

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Schedule:

Tuesday, January 9 & Thursday, January 11, 2pm-7pm 
iHQ 3rd Floor (Building E38)
Register: https://forms.gle/uyFX9q3sWpmQ8bJE6
 

About the Competition

Inspired by Antje Ehmann’s and Harun Farocki’s world-wide video project “Labour in a Single Shot,” which explored the subject of work through short video clips, MIT in 3:00 asks competitors — What is your MIT? And can you show it in 3 minutes?
 

About the Instructor

Alberto Angelini (pka Albert Figurt) is an Italian videomaker, musician and independent researcher. Since 2005 he has worked as a director and screenwriter both for TV and documentaries, while also presenting video-art installations and experimental theatre pièces all over Europe. He has taught within several study abroad programs in Italy, organizing “Expanded Video Editing” and “DIY Guerrilla Filmmaking” seminars for American exchange students. Alberto is a visiting artist with the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and taught the practice-based course 21W.752 Making Documentary in Fall 2023. 

This 4 week workshop will introduce you to the basics of wheel throwing, trimming and glazing.  Learn basic techniques that will allow you to confidently create on the potter’s wheel.

This 4 week intermediate/advanced workshop will have us explore unusual forming techniques and surprising surface treatments that take us beyond the “round”. Oval, wavy, stretched or crazy, the teapot is a wonderful subject that will show us a balance between functionality and creativity.  Would you like one lump or two?

The Creature: Walking Garbage

Non-Credit IAP 2024 Workshop

January 10^th to 12^th, WRF 9:00-12:00; @3-415 

The garbage needs more attention! 

In “Purity and Danger," Mary Douglas claimed that waste is not a static group of items but rather the outcome of classification and relationships¹. This concept extends beyond mere physical attributes, also encompassing how the self is molded and identified through interactions with waste. Consequently, our waste disposal methods are intimately connected to our individual styles, emphasizing the influence of waste management on shaping cultural identities and subjectivity. The way we do it reflects an ethos, a manner of being².

This three-day workshop explores trash as a useful material to be crafted, digitalized, and animated. Through tutorials to digital tools, hands-on making, and interactive exercises, participants will be introduced to the importance of materials, representation, and data in evaluating the impact of waste as resources and ultimately propose effective measures to redesign the matter out of place.

Tools and materials are ALL provided (also food). We also would love to see your personal touch if you want to bring your garbage piece that speaks to you. :) 

NOTES 

1. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966). 

2. Hawkins, Gay. The Ethics of Waste: How We Relate to Rubbish. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006.  

Instructors: 

Yiqing WANG, March; Biru CAO, SMArchS Computation 

Sponsor: 

MindHandHeart Innovation Fund

Please sign up here or scan the QR code in the attached poster if you are interested in participating in the workshop.

If you have questions, don't hesitate to email yiqingw@mit.edu

​Schedule:

How do we transform garbage into a living creature? We are introducing a new workflow combining hands-on artwork-making and digitalization techniques from 3D scanning to AI-generated rigging will be introduced.

Day one: Gather your chosen discarded items—desired or otherwise. We'll guide you through using the 3D scanning tool.

Day two: Paper mache creation. Shape your trash into a mesh, both manually and through 3D scanning.

Day three: Animate your paper mache with generative AI!

What you can learn:

Matter to Data via 3D-scan

Modeling skills and building paper mache

Basic Rigging and Animation

Dynamics of Waste

Your work will be announced in the Trash-to-Treasure competition project sponsored by the MindHandHeart Innovation Fund next semester.

Looking forward to having you!

This intermediate studio course is designed for scientists and engineers conducting research who want to bridge the gap between their academic topics of interest with representation in a visual language. We will approach the process of making art from a scientific framework, emphasizing research, experimentation, and reflection. Students will be prompted to develop a series of works that stem from their research practices, and think about how their materials and artistic processes can relay information within the sciences. We will spend the first class talking about our research and how you plan to make a body of work about a specific concern, before making a plan for production. Classes will include discussions about artists who work at the intersection of art and science/technology, and the class schedule may involve trips to see relevant exhibitions (to be announced to students 1-2 weeks prior). Students may work within the realms of abstraction or representation, but should have prior experience in working within these respective fields as foundational techniques will not be covered.

Class runs from January 10-26, 2024, MWF 1-5 pm.

The workshop, 'Setting the Table — Representing HER' spans three weeks and focuses on equipping students with the necessary tools to create a zine booklet featured at the Shift+W Represent HER - The Female Architect exhibit in the Keller Gallery next spring.

During our initial week, we'll engage in exercises centered on table conversations and research techniques. Moving into the second week, we would delve into various forms of representation, aiding students in expressing their intentions and motivations. In our third week, participants will gain design skills to craft a visually captivating zine showcasing their thorough research and visual work.

The workshop explores how gender diversity influences design by examining the interplay between female architectural representation and broader societal implications.

Sign-up by Friday, January 5, 2024.

This course provides an overview of the process of painting portraits, focusing on composition, color, values, and textures. Although the class will be grounded in representational painting, students will be given the flexibility to incorporate abstraction into their works to create a striking and dynamic image. Students will learn important skills in painting such as creating underpaintings, mixing warm/cool palettes, and glazing. Students will leave this course with a deeper understanding on the approaches to portrait painting and will finish a painting at the conclusion of our time together.

This course provides an introduction to how physical computation can be utilized within an artistic practice. Students will be introduced to the Arduino IDE and basic principles of circuits, and will learn how to use different motors, sensors, and displays. At the end of the four weeks, students will have created an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for their computational works and understand the process of ideation, making schematics, and best practices for electronics arts.

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the bowl. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a bowl fit for you, a family member or even a friend!  If you like cereal, soups, and salads and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

Explore the world of clay through a variety of techniques used to create the bowl. Wheelthrowing and handbuilding methods are combined to construct a bowl fit for you, a family member or even a friend!  If you like cereal, soups, and salads and are interested in clay, this class is for you!

This 4 week workshop will introduce you to the basics of wheel throwing, trimming and glazing.  Learn basic techniques that will allow you to confidently create on the potter’s wheel.

Digital photography opens up a multitude of ways of working with multiple exposures. In this course, we’ll use digital cameras and Photoshop to produce composite images using a variety of strategies, including layering, collaging, and stitching. No prior experience with Photoshop is necessary, and a basic introduction to working with digital mirrorless cameras will be given. A laptop capable of running Adobe Photoshop is required for the course. MIT affiliates may download Photoshop for free through MIT’s Adobe Creative Cloud license.

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center for a screening of the documentary Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald.

This awe-inspiring film received a Sundance Grand Jury Prize nomination. The Chinese artist, Cai Guo-Qiang, tells us the true story behind Sky Ladder, a piece carried out in secret in a small Chinese fishing village under cover of night. In 2010, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Ring Stone  was commissioned to celebrate the MIT Sloan School of Management’s educational and cultural ties with China. Learn more through a short presentation about Cai Guo-Qiang’s work and connection to MIT's campus prior to the film screening. 

This winter, the List Center will be taking a deeper look at the lives and work of select artists within our Public Art Collection. 

This program is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special four-week term at MIT. IAP 204 begins on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends on Friday, February 2, 2024. Guests from outside the MIT community are welcome to attend all in-person events.

During this 4 week intermediate/advanced level workshop, we will focus on several pitcher forms.  With an emphasis on handles and spouts, we will learn composition as well as the functionality of one of mankind’s earliest functional forms.  With time permitting, several surface decorating techniques will also be introduced before bisque firing.

This course provides an intensive introduction to the fundamentals and processes of representational drawing. Students will engage with, and explore, a plethora of drawing methodologies such as mark-making, layering, additive/subtractive drawing, and the articulation of line, shape, volume, weight, gesture, and composition. This class will use charcoal as the primary drawing material, and after guided technical exercises students will take their skills and apply it through the rendering of a complex still life.

This 4 week workshop will introduce you to the basics of wheel throwing, trimming and glazing.  Learn basic techniques that will allow you to confidently create on the potter’s wheel.

Not a Metallurgy class! This veteran crash-course is coming back in full force and will have you head banging, air guitaring, and devil horn raising in no time! Learn everything you ever wanted to know about Heavy Metal, including how Metallica continues to evolve, why Lemmy IS God (RIP), how the genre tackles some of today's biggest sociopolitical challenges, why metal bands exist in every country on Earth, and why you're probably already a metalhead without even knowing it.  

WARNING: This series most definitely goes to 11!  Earplugs optional.

We'll look at metal cultures, explore the fringes of the most extreme forms of metal, and, of course, listen to some SCREAMING HEAVY METAL! This is guaranteed to be the most BRUTAL class ever offered at MIT! Anyone is welcome to join, and since we're remote again this year, seating isn't limited. Learn more about this series' past in the class archive!

Heavy Metal 101: Music and Culture

Monday January 15, 2024

An introduction to Heavy Metal. Topics include the musicology of Heavy Metal as well as an examination of Heavy Metal culture. This multimedia extravaganza covers everything you ever wanted to know about Heavy Metal!

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Music as Emotional Catharsis with Jason McMaster

Tuesday January 16, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Jason McMaster. Jason McMaster, metal vocalist from bands including Watchtower and Dangerous Toys, will delve into the unique ways heavy metal serves as a form of emotional release and a coping mechanism for millions worldwide. Also a seasoned School of Rock educator for the past 18 years, Jason will discuss the process of song creation, from the intellectual spark to the physical act of crafting melodies with wood and wires, and how this genre has evolved into a therapeutic art form.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Guitar Tablature Generation with Deep Learning with Pedro Sarmento

Wednesday January 17, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Pedro Sarmento. Within the field of symbolic music generation with deep learning, most works focus on MIDI representations, but less attention has been paid to guitar-focused symbolic music using digital tablatures. Guitar Pro format tablatures are a type of digital music notation that encapsulates information about guitar playing techniques and fingerings. Tablatures are often the preferred way of notating music digitally amongst the rock and metal communities.  This presentation will showcase the findings concerning the generation of multi-instrument compositions in Guitar Pro with Transformer architectures. The talk will focus on (1) the DadaGP dataset, a corpus of Guitar Pro tablature data suitable for sequence models, (2) GTR-CTRL, conditioning methods for Transformer models for the task of guitar tablature generation that allow for control over instrumentation and musical genre, (3) ShredGP, methods for guitarist-style conditioned guitar tablature generation with Transformers and (4) ProgGP, a practice-based research approach for creating AI-generated but human-produced prog metal music.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Innovating Metal Music with Technology with Jordan Rudess - LIVE In-Person and Online!

Thursday January 18, 2024

This class will take place online in-person on MIT's Campus in room 35-225 and will be livestreamed (if possible) and recorded for later viewing.

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Jordan Rudess. Jordan Rudess, keyboardist for the progressive metal band Dream Theater and founder of Wizdom Music will share his expertise on the fusion of technology and metal music. Focusing on the innovative use of Riffler, an app for creating copyright-free guitar riffs, Jordan will also invite conversation regarding the roles of artificial intelligence and creativity in musical performance. This class will be an opportunity to gain insights from a pioneer in the integration of digital technology in metal music.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions with Joan Jocson-Singh and Julie Turley

Monday January 22, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturers, Joan Jocson-Singh and Julie Turley. The book Heavy Music Mothers: Extreme Identities, Narrative Disruptions is an exploration of women and heavy music and the ways in which women have historically engaged with musicking as mothers. Julie Turley and Joan Jocson-Singh, musicking mothers themselves, largely employ an ethnographic lens, foregrounded in powerful one-on-one original interviews as vignettes that narrate thematic patterns. Other chapters examine motherhood identity embedded in respective published rock music memoirs, discussions of rock performance as a site of maternal bonding, and themes that arise when heavy music mothers write about motherhood.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

The Physics of Shred with Dr. Gore

Tuesday January 23, 2024

MIT Heavy Metal 101 is pleased to present guest lecturer, Dr. Gore. Dr. Gore’s session will focus on the relationship between the physics of the electric guitar and the characteristic sounds of heavy metal guitars. Topics covered will include pickup design and placement, natural and artificial harmonics, multiscale/”fanned fret” guitars, the boons and banes of nonlinearity, and why distortion is so integral to the “heavy metal sound.” Dr. Gore will also perform some shredtastic demonstrations of each of these principles along the way.

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

History of Heavy Metal: Part I

Wednesday January 24, 2024

A seminar examining the history of Heavy Metal from the late 1960s through the early 1990s. Topics will include Hard Rock, Archetypal Heavy Metal, and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM).

Zoom Registration

Facebook Event

REGISTRATION FOR THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW CLOSED.

Who doesn’t love colorful blinking lights? In this 2 session workshop we will look at how Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) work, how to connect and power them, and a variety of ways to control and animate them. Whether you’re looking for a simple indicator light or an art display with 100s of LEDs, this workshop will get you started. Students will be introduced to microcontrollers and CircuitPython, but no prior electronics or programming experience is required.  You will, however, need to bring a laptop.

This is a 2 session workshop, plan to attend both dates. Enrollment is limited and registration is required.

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center for a screening of Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray directed and produced by Kristi Zea.

This intimate portrait of painter and printmaker, Elizabeth Murray, explores the relationship between her family life and career, and reconsiders her place in contemporary art history. The MIT List Visual Arts Center hosted a solo-presentation of Elizabeth Murray’s work in 1987, and in 2005, Murray was the fifth woman to be celebrated with a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Best known for her fragmented and shaped canvases, Elizabeth Murray makes paintings that are neither fully abstract nor representational. They are also not truly paintings, as their eccentric compositions and varied materials are often suggestive of sculpture, with Cast-a-way as a prime example. Learn more through a short presentation about Elizabeth Murray’s work and connection to MIT's campus prior to the film screening. 

This winter, the List Center will be taking a deeper look at the lives and work of select artists within our Public Art Collection. 

This program is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special four-week term at MIT. IAP 204 begins on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends on Friday, February 2, 2024. Guests from outside the MIT community are welcome to attend all in-person events.

CAST Visiting Artist @lbert Figurt invites you to a full-immersion theater workshop centered on our multifaceted relationship with screen-based devices. 

Profiting from a dedicated studio space in the Theater Arts building, participants will engage in a convivial brainstorming in order to share their idiosyncratic digital routines, confront personal computerized emotions and ultimately remix tics, obsessions and fears in as many unexpected performative stimuli. 

Little by little, with Albert helping in the guise of a facilitator / co-creator (rather than a director / choreographer), the scattered fragments will be then orchestrated and assembled into a minimal, multimedia theatrical outcome — to be presented at the very end of the day for a small audience.

Open to all members of the MIT community (students, staff, faculty, alumni)

Capped at 15 participants

No experience necessary, just bring a sense of curiosity and a willingness to explore. Guests of participants are welcome to attend the showcase at the end of the day. 

Presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology and supported by the Alan W. Katzenstein (1942) Memorial Fund, with thanks to MIT Comparative Media Studies / Writing and MIT Music and Theater Arts.

Learn more and register

Join MHH for a Lego break! We will have snacks, drinks, and plenty of Legos to create your masterpiece. Take a picture of your creation and tag us on social media to be entered in a drawing for an MIT Values t-shirt.

No registation required! 

RSVP HERE

Not all Buddhists meditate, in fact, some do not meditate at all!... Then, what do the Buddhists do and what do the Buddhists believe in? Can we really generalize their practices and beliefs? What comes with the tradition do we lose when focusing mostly and heavily on meditation alone? 

This three day introductory IAP takes you into the fun, vibrant, ornamented, messy, breathing, controversial Theravāda Buddhism, one of the earliest kinds of Buddhism, which is still practiced in some parts of Southeast Asia and in Sri Lanka. The course focuses on Thailand and Myanmar through the eyes of Theravāda Buddhists. 

You will learn basic knowledge and vocabs to talk about the tradition like scriptures, teachings, and practices. You will be introduced to some complex issues and questions regarding the tradition. Comments, questions, concerns, and dialogues are welcome. On the last day, there will be home-cooked Thai food for everyone while the conversation focusing on food and faith. 

No background in anything is needed! Just be ready to step into the world of the unseens, animals, ghosts, relics, flowers, dust, and magics where time doesn't work the same way you're familiar with. 

Session 1: January 24 (Wednesday) 7-9 pm W11-155  Theme: The Pāli Canon and the Theravāda World through the eyes of Theravāda Buddhists

Session 2: January 25 (Thursday) 7-9 pm W11-155 Theme: Theravāda Buddhism and its relationship with other traditions in present days Thailand

Session 3: January 30 (Thursday) 6-8pm + home-cooked Thai food will be provided W11-190 Theme: Food and Faith

All sections are led by Saly Sirothphiphat an MDiv II student at Harvard Divinity School, a Thai Theravāda Buddhist and Win Kyaw Harvard Divinity School MTS '22 who studies Myanmar and Theravāda Buddhism. 

Hosted by the Addir Interfaith Dialogue Program

Join the MIT List Visual Arts Center for a screening of the documentary Nevelson in Process, 1977 a film by Susan Fanshel and Jill Godmilow. 

This documentary is part of the Met’s Museum extensive moving-image archive. The artist Louise Nevelson (1899–1988) was known for her elaborate and monumental sculptures made of found materials such as discarded wood and scrap metal. In 1975, Louise Nevelson’s Transparent Horizon was the first Percent-for-Art commission at MIT, an initiative that began in 1968 that allocates a portion of the budget from each new building project or major renovation to the purchase or commission of art for Public Space. Learn more through a short presentation about Louise Nevelson’s work and connection to MIT’s campus prior to the film screening. 

This winter, the List Center will be taking a deeper look at the lives and work of select artists within our Public Art Collection. 

This program is part of the Independent Activities Period (IAP), a special four-week term at MIT. IAP 204 begins on Monday, January 8, 2024, and ends on Friday, February 2, 2024. Guests from outside the MIT community are welcome to attend all in-person events.