Focused on the practices of varied practitioners — film directors, artists, musicians, composers, architects, designers — whose writings relay a process of thinking and feeling integral to their forms of material production. Testing various ways aesthetic forms and their shifts — historic and contemporary — have relations to still emerging contemporary subjectivities (felt emotion in a human body), the class studies productions created by participants and case studies of varied producers, and generates new work individually and/or collaboratively via diverse media explorations. Includes reading, writing, drawing, and publishing, as well as photographic, cinematic, spatial, and audio operations and productions. Activities include screenings, listening assignments, and guest visits, in addition to readings, discussions, and presentations.

4.341 U / 4.342 G

Introduces history and contemporary practices in artistic photography through projects, lectures, artist visits, group discussions, readings, and field trips. Fosters visual literacy and aesthetic appreciation of photography/digital imaging, as well as critical awareness of how images in our culture are produced and constructed. Provides instruction in the fundamentals of different camera formats, film exposure and development, lighting, black and white darkroom printing, and digital imaging. Assignments allow for incorporation of a range of traditional and experimental techniques, development of technical skills, and personal exploration. Throughout the term, present and discuss projects in a critical forum. 

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

Introduces artistic practice and critical visual thinking through three studio-based projects using different scales and media, for instance, "Body Extension," "Shaping Time," "Public Making," and/or "Networked Cultures." Each project concludes with a final presentation and critique. Students explore sculptural, architectural, performative artistic methods; video and sound art; site interventions and strategies for artistic engagement in the public realm. Lectures, screenings, guest presentations, field trips, readings, and debates supplement studio practice. Also introduces students to the historic, cultural, and environmental forces affecting both the development of an artistic vision and the reception of a work of art.

This research-intensive class will engage students and postdoctoral researchers in real-world curatorial practice for the 2027 Islamic Arts Biennale. They will work as a collaborative research collective with an international network of over 35 museums and collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Benaki Museum, the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, the David Collection in Copenhagen, and a range of cultural institutions across Mali, Nigeria, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, and Saudi Arabia. Students will explore innovative ways to present Islamic art from different regions and time periods through three main curatorial goals: telling nuanced stories about Islamic art through objects and their histories, expanding geographies beyond center-periphery models toward polycentric narratives, and creating new display formats using immersive, experiential, and digital methods that go beyond traditional museum practices.

A central collaborative project is creating the MAWSŪʿA: THE INFINITE DICTIONARY to establish a growing vocabulary for Islamic art that honors diverse cultural perspectives and epistemologies. Research areas within this project may include material intelligence in textile, woodcraft, glass, ceramics, and metalworking technologies; knowledge circulation through pilgrimage and trade networks; experimental approaches to manuscripts and devotional objects; multisensory installation strategies; AI applications in museum contexts; integration of contemporary artistic practice with historical collections; and forms of public engagement that bridge historical scholarship with experiential innovation. These explorations will directly inform the curatorial research for the Biennale. Participants' contributions to the MAWSŪʿA project will be featured in the exhibition and on an ongoing global knowledge-building platform.

UG: 4.378 | G: 4.379

Probes the ethics and aesthetics of historic preservation through an artistic lens. Introduces a range of themes related to politics of heritage, memory and commemoration, trauma, iconoclasm, and more. Explores the agency of monuments in relation to colonialism, nationalism, social justice, and democracy. Research is conducted in groups, through which students analyze contested heritage sites through critical artistic and spatial practices addressing traumatic, troubling, or toxic memory. Lectures, screenings, readings, and discussions inform the development of individual projects. At the end of the semester, students create projects that may involve artistic tools, collective learning experiences, creative processes, and transdisciplinary knowledge exchanges that demonstrate a new way of capturing, sustaining, and developing future heritage.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

Seminar connecting the arts and sciences by exploring methodological similarities and differences across the arts, architecture, engineering, and social sciences. Through targeted reading and exercises, each student develops a collaborative project that engages directly with another discipline. Projects are iterated over the course of the term. Readings, visitors, and lectures expose students to a wide range of practitioners across different fields. Students interrogate the underlying methodologies that unite and separate their disciplines. Presents best-practice models for cultivating collaboration through the use of case studies.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

UG: 4.354; G: 4.355

Examines the technical and conceptual variables and strategies inherent in contemporary video art practice. Analyzes structural concepts of time, space, perspective, and sound within the art form. Building upon the historical legacy of the moving the image, students render self-exploration, performance, social critique, and manipulation of raw experience into an aesthetic form. Emphasizes practical knowledge of lighting, video capturing and editing, and montage. Presentation and critique of student work, technical workshops, screenings, and reading discussions assist students with final project.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

Explores the theory and criticism of intersections between art, culture, and technology in relation to contemporary artistic practice, critical design, and media. Students consider methods of investigation, documentation, and display and explore modes of communication. Students develop projects in which they organize research goals, engage in production, cultivate a context for practice, and explore how to communicate, display, and document work, with artistic practice as a method of critical inquiry/knowledge dissemination. Regular presentation and peer-critiques, reviews with ACT faculty and fellows, and external guest reviewers provide feedback as projects develop. Simultaneously, students prepare for thesis through both foundational texts in contemporary theory and criticism and artist writings, alongside presentations and discussions on methodological perspectives required of interdisciplinary approaches.

As we transition from the Information Age to the Imagination Age, creative resilience, artistic intelligence, and other uniquely human traits will be vital for navigating highly complex and rapidly changing environments. Art and design are essential partners to science and technology in this context, driving transformational change and innovation that are integrative, inventive, and profoundly human.

This course blends artistic practice with DesignX's innovation framework to introduce students to Transversal Design. This cross-disciplinary approach works across art, science, technology, ecology, and social systems to address complex, interconnected global challenges. Students will learn to view art and design as imaginative, cultural, and ethical forces that shape futures, not just solve problems. Through this lens, students will learn to work with uncertainty, emerging ideas, and speculative scenarios to create responsible, non-extractive projects and interventions.

This course invites participants to re-examine how they define and achieve success in times of rapid social and ecological transformation. Students will envision speculative projects, which may include creating artifacts, developing systemic thinking, and prototyping public communication. Final projects may utilize artistic media such as posters, videos, sound, poems, and/or performances.

This transdisciplinary class is a collaboration between ACT and the Morningside Academy of Design through DesignX. Students will design and present visual representations of the impact area they choose to explore and innovate.

Students from all disciplines and backgrounds and undergraduates are welcome! 

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

This hands-on studio explores the intersections of art, design, governance, and urban agriculture through the collaborative construction of two site-specific chicken coops—one for Common Good Farm and one for Eastie Farms—based on an open-source artist-designed framework. Cross listed and co-taught with Justin Blazier (Architecture) and Kate Brown (STS), the course connects critical histories of urban farming in Boston and Cambridge with practical skills in community-responsive design and fabrication. Students work directly with local farms and gardens to understand ecological, social, and political contexts, develop artistic, adaptive design proposals, and collectively build functional structures that examine how food systems, civic infrastructures, and public space shape one another.

Note for MArch students: Serves as an ACT elective