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.

This course investigates the interdisciplinary and generative possibilities of publication, emphasizing its role as a practice of expanding public engagement and imagination. Throughout the semester, students will explore worldmaking strategies, speculative fiction and an array of publication methods ranging from traditional techniques—leveraging ACT and MIT’s extensive resources such as riso printing, book binding and maker labs—to experimental approaches in digital media, performance, political systems, architecture, contemporary art, design, and AI.

Rooted in the definition of publication as the act of ‘making public,’ this course offers an opportunity to experiment with the collective meaning-making strategies of editorial work through and beyond printed matter. Participants are encouraged to bring in their personal research and projects to develop them with the lens of artistic publication. The semester culminates in a collective exhibition or public representation of the work produced.
 

UG: 4.368; G: 4.369

Focuses on the production of artistic interventions in public space. Explores ideas, situations, objects, and materials that shape public space and inform the notion of public and publicness, with an emphasis on co-production and cooperative ethics. Examines forms of environmental art in comparison to temporal and critical forms of art and action in the public sphere. Historical models include the Russian Constructivists, the Situationists International, system aesthetics, participatory and conceptual art, contemporary interventionist tactics and artistic strategies, and methods of public engagement. Students develop an initial concept for a publicly-situated project. Includes guest lectures, visiting artist presentations, and optional field trips.

Additional work required of students taking graduate version. 

UG: 4.s30  G: 4.s35

An introduction to the tools and concepts of capturing and transitioning forms between the human scale and nanoscale. The generation of simulation-based art projects reflects these explorations and the ways they can be used in the context of art, culture, and technology. What dialogs can engage with society when operating on sub-visible scales or taking forms from the nano into the human macro scale, creating artistic simulations, motion from form, or form from motion?

Students will collaborate with MIT Nano on final projects intended for public exhibition in a gallery setting.

4.341 UG | 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. Lab fee required. Limited to 20.

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.

1/24/25 - Schedule change from TR 2-5 to TW 2-5

4.352 UG | 4.353 G

Advanced video production, installation, and exhibition design introduces advanced image and sound design strategies from both a technical and conceptual perspective. Storytelling is the linchpin that unites these seemingly disparate forms. Visual semiotics and media analysis, alongside installation and exhibition design, offer a perspective from which to consider how meaning is constructed when you engage across different forms of art production such as within individual artworks, media installations, and the design of exhibitions. Each of these forms implies a different spatial configuration and it is the relationship between the artwork and the space where it is displayed that determines how the work is understood by a viewer.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

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.

UG: 4.310, G: 4.311

This hands on studio class will expose students to the technical skills needed for successful screen printing. Students will produce single and multicolor prints on paper and fabric using a variety of methods. Classes will cover an introduction to preparing and reclaiming screens, creating handmade and digital cut stencils, use of screen positives and photo emulsion, mono prints and editions, registration, and more.  Lab fee required.