While design is frequently deployed as a problem-solving instrument, it can unintentionally result in ethical dilemmas and unanticipated outcomes. This course uniquely combines the critical lens of art with the transdisciplinary framework of DesignX, promoting introspection and thoughtful deliberation before diving into design solutions. This class initiates a collaboration between ACT and the Morningside Academy of Design through DesignX. Students engage with a transdisciplinary ensemble of influential speakers. The lecture series also allow students to innovate and explore a social impact design. Undergraduates are welcome. 

4.s36 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

This course focuses on the production of artistic experiments catalyzed by research in art, with art and through art. Conceptually it deals with new modes of artistic production that shifts the discussion on artistic research towards critical engagement with the new climatic regime. Titled Climate Visions, the workshop positions artistic intelligence as a way to contribute with aesthetics and criticality to climate science, suggesting new visioning, that is in dialectics with scientific one. Oscillating between pragmatics and fiction this course will probe new perspectivism that enables future narratives of cohabitation with more-than-humans. The workshop will engage the MIT laboratories as a site where utopias for the future forms of environmental citizenship and new climate commons will be prototyped. In conversation with scientists the participants will develop hybrid projects of art and science suggesting an artistic instrumentarium for ecological repair, envisioning, speculation and probing of alternative perspectives, that catalyze a different climate for the future.

A multitude of concepts will be engaged with during this workshop: hybrid habitats and milieu, critical zones and new climatic regime, shadow biosphere and feminist fabulation, sympoiesis and composibility, cohabitation and commensality. Readings related to this subject include those by Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, Gilbert Simondon, Catherine Malabou, James Lovelock, Michel Serres, Georges Canguilhem, Scott F Gilbert, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Andrew Pickering, Isabelle Stengers, Vinciane Despret, Eduardo Viveiro de Castro, Elizabeth Povinelli, Jakob Johann von Uexküll, TJ Demos, and others.

Visits to the class and the field trips may include Diane Borsato, Marjetica Potrč, Fernando García-Dory, Pelin Tan, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, D-Lab, MIT Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.

The class is structured with the help of the three conceptual lenses through which participants will look into the artistic project: The Manifesto, The Score and The Instrument. As such these conceptual lenses would (A) connect with pressing concerns on climate crisis — making bridge between community / injustice / climate change, and (B) help to un-earth the underlying (autochthonous) landscape in the city, affected by an extractivist economy and colonization.

In addition to lectures, discussions, crits and individual studio meetings there will be visits to the labs organized facilitated by guest interlocutors, and designed to catalyze explorations and probe what “landing on Earth” (Latour) means in practical terms.

The class will meet as a group on Mondays 9:30 am – 12:30 am for main input: lectures, visits from guest artists, designers and scholars, and discussions of readings, with a Lab work scheduled on Wednesdays 9:30 am – 12:30 am, when individual meetings and/or studio visits and desk crits with the instructor (and guest artists) would be organized. Wednesdays time slot would also be reserved for workshopping of students' ideas, and/or library/archival research.

Students will engage in (3) phases and modalities of work: MANIFESTO, SCORE, and INSTRUMENT.

4.328/4.329 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

UG: 4.354; G: 4.355

Introduces advanced strategies of image and sound manipulation, both technical and conceptual. Covers pre-production planning (storyboards and scripting), refinement of digital editing techniques, visual effects such as chroma-keying, post-production, as well as audio and sonic components. Context provided by regular viewings of contemporary video artworks and other audio-visual formats. Students work individually and in groups to develop skills in media literacy and communication. Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

4.354/4.355 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Undergraduate: 4.s37 | Graduate: 4.s33

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.

4.s33 + 4.s37 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Undergraduate: 4.s30 | Graduate: 4.s32

Introduction to Interactive, Participatory and Generative Art Making introduces the basics of creating art projects that interact with participants and/or environment using a variety of code and hardware based solutions.

Divided into 3 sections:

1. Max/MSP/Jitter: is a graphical object based coding environment with virtual buttons, switches, timers, counters and many other modules, and the ability to communicate with other devices - one of the best way to 
create virtual and physical spaces with interactive A/V components without having to write code and as such is used extensively by musicians, interactive installation artists, VJs and more worldwide. Can be exported as an app for sharing and distribution

2. Physical computing using Ardiuno technology: using input sensors whose data can be interpreted and used to create interaction. Control or interact with anything from lights, speakers, motors to communicating with Max or Processing or P5.js and more.Processing and P5.js will be included as alternative code environments.

3. Web based interactivity using CSS and Javascript, for interactive animation and all the types of interactivity based on mouse and touch based input for screens and mobile devices. We will explore how AI can help generate, correct and validate code in this space and how it can be leveraged for interactive art purposes.

4.s30/4.s32 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

9/12/23 note: Schedule change to 2M 2-5, F 10-1

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 across disciplines. Students develop projects in which they organize research methods and goals, engage in production, cultivate a context for their practice, and explore how to compellingly communicate, display, and document their work. Regular presentation and peer-critique sessions, as well as reviews involving ACT faculty and fellows, and external guest reviewers provide students with ample feedback as their projects develop.

4.390 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)