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.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

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. 

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

UG: 4.328 | G: 4.329

This course focuses on the production of artistic experiments catalyzed by research in art and climate, and eco-sociality of the locale. The workshop will engage the Herter community garden in Boston as a site where utopias for the future forms of environmental citizenship and new climate commons will be prototyped.

In conversation with local stakeholders the participants will develop hybrid projects of art and design suggesting an artistic instrumentarium for ecological repair, envisioning a future of cohabitation with more-than-humans, and probing alternative perspectives that catalyze a different climate for the future.

Inspired by counterculture experiments and emerging environmentalist design of the 60’s and 70’s, the course will discuss concepts such as anthropocene aesthetics, compossibility, critical zones, eco-activism, feminist fabulation, interspecies assemblies, permacomputing, and archipelagic thinking.

Readings will include those by Jane Bennet, Georges Canguilhem, TJ Demos, Eduardo Viveiro de Castro, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Astrida Neimanis, Andrew Pickering, Elizabeth Povinelli, Isabelle Stengers, Anna Tsing, and others.

Visits to the class and the field trips may include Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Tue Greenfort, Diane Borsato, Fernando García-Dory, Pelin Tan, Julie Kepes, D-Lab experts, FutureFarmers, Critical Art Ensemble, Platform London, The Center for Land Use Interpretation.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

U: 4.324 | G: 4.325

This seminar connects the arts and sciences by exploring methodological similarities and differences across disciplines between the arts and architecture, the humanities and the social sciences, engineering, natural and material sciences, alongside exploring emerging technologies such as AR/XR, AI and ML. Aimed at fostering student collaborations across research interests, students develop their ideas for projects through targeted analysis of their disciplinary and interdisciplinary interests. Each student will either enter with a project in mind or develop their project ideas within the class. Students can choose to work individually or in groups. 

This seminar’s goal is to provide a blueprint for developing interdisciplinary projects. The final project is a written and visual presentation of a workable plan whose goals/outcomes will form the basis for a collaborative interdisciplinary project. Visitors to the class may include Caroline A. Jones, Paul Vanouse, Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits, Candice Hooper, Jens Hauser, Pierre Huyghe, Po-Hao Chi among others.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

MIT Certificate Protected Syllabus

Telltales of Tide and Terra is a participatory art project addressing the climate crisis through collaborative art making, public data visualization, and installations, which include shading structures and giant community meals. Upcycled textiles and its patterns transform complex climate data into accessible, emotionally engaging visual experiences that inspire climate action. The project is produced though collaborative screen printing and cyanotype workshops, for an exhibition at the MIT Art Festival (March 1-16, 2025) and the Venice Biennale of Architecture (May '25).

Register by 1/20/2025 by emailing Merve Akdogan.

Undergraduate: 4.s38 | Graduate: 4.s32

This course explores the evolving role of monuments and public memory through the lens of racial justice, decolonization, and the politics of space. Students will critically engage with historical and contemporary monuments, as well as concepts of “ReMemory” (Toni Morrison) that are not yet materialized outside the bodies that hold these traces of the past. Subject focuses on interventions that challenge dominant narratives and foster inclusive, participatory spaces of memory. Deliverables include a semester-long project showcased in an exhibition and/or collaborative publication, aligning with the course’s focus on research, scholarship and creative practice, and public engagement.

How to create art with DNA origami technology, from design through manufacturing to imaging with atomic force microscopy. Students will learn aesthetics and think through critical and speculative design approaches about the cultural impacts of this emerging technology.

The workshop participants should bring their laptops as we will be conducting hands-on exercises that require a computer.

Undergraduates welcome.

Please email Matej Vakula at matej@mit.edu for more information or to sign up.

Note: room is now E15-341

This two-day IAP workshop will explore the aesthetic dimensions of microfluidics and biotechnology. It will focus on creating interactive artworks highlighting the intersection of science and art through microfluidic technologies, including various lab-on-a-chip devices. Participants will prototype works that explore the cultural and visual implications of lab automation and biotechnological advancements, highlighting their aesthetic significance.

ACT lecturer Matej Vakula and Dr. Mehdi Salek, the lead instructor for MIT’s New Engineering Education Transformation Program, will lead the workshop.

Undergraduates welcome.

Please email Matej Vakula at matej@mit.edu for more information or to sign up.

12/4/24 Update: class will now meet MW 10-1, room 13-1143

4.s37 UG | 4.s33 G

Introduction to basics of biomimicry and natural algorithms in computational design and artificial life. You don’t have any prior programming or modeling software experience is needed. Advanced folks will be accommodated on an individual project-based track.

Students learn about the cultural and visual implications of automation and biotechnological advancements driven by computational technology, exploring their aesthetic significance through data and algorithms.

This is a beginner’s guide to ethical solutions to design problems in computational design and data concerning nature through visualization and art. It considers the broader impact of design decisions on communities, society, and culture.

This is a low-level, beginner-friendly introduction to the basics of data visualization in processing and Python, biomimicry, agent-based systems in Grasshopper visual coding and C#, and animation in Maya.