4.648, 21A.507 U / 4.649, 21A.519 G

Examines the sonic phenomena and experiences that motivate scientific, humanistic, and artistic practices. Explores the aesthetic and technical aspects of how we hear; measure or describe vibrations; record, compress, and distribute resonating materials; and how we ascertain what we know about the world through sound. Although the focus is on sound as an aesthetic, social, and scientific object, the subject also investigates how resonance is used in the analysis of acoustics, architecture, and music theory. Students make a sonic artifact or research project as a final requirement.

Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

Course Syllabus (MIT Certificate required)

Examines the history of Islamic architecture and culture spanning fifteen centuries on three continents - Asia, Africa, Europe. Students study a number of representative examples, from the 7th century House of the Prophet to the current high-rises of Dubai, in conjunction with their urban, social, political, and intellectual environments at the time of their construction.

4.614 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

4.603 UG / 4.604 G

Examines modern architecture, art, and design in the context of the political, economic, aesthetic, and cultural changes that occurred in the twentieth century. Presents foundational debates about social and technological aspects of modern architecture and the continuation of those debates into contemporary architecture. Incorporates varied techniques of historical and theoretical analysis to interpret exemplary objects, buildings, and cities of modernity.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version.

4.603/4.604 Syllabus (MIT Certificate Protected)

Introduction to the history and interpretation of western art in a global context that explores painting, graphic arts and sculpture from the 15th century to the present. Engages diverse methodological perspectives to examine changing conceptions of art and the artist, and to investigate the plural meaning of artworks within the larger contexts of culture and history.

4.601 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

4.356 U / 4.357 G

What do the words “cinematic” and “migration” evoke? What does the conjunction evoke? How is “cinematic” being defined here? How is “migration” being defined here? How are both being thought in relation to each other?

Desire for cinema perhaps existed before its creation. Questions regarding this speculation and the variety of ways this longing has been addressed in the past and present form the basis of inquiry in this workshop.

The course explores how cinema has been transformed in and by online video and television, spatial installations, performance and dance, and an expanding range of formats and portable devices, as well as the theory and content of how cinema is categorized, disseminated, and analyzed. This workshop is meant to stimulate further experiments in transdisciplinary forms and to broaden students’ perception of cinema in the present.

The workshop will include explorations of the emergence of cinemas on local and national levels that have migrated through the world to varying effect. Readings will include philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s Cinema 1: The Movement Image, and Cinema 2: The Time Image. We will be screening and discussing films by film makers and artists such as: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Chris Marker, John Akomfrah, Harun Farocki, Chantal Akerman, Lucrecia Martel, Ousmane Sembene, Jia Zhangke, Agnes Varda, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Renee Green and Yvonne Rainer. Students are encouraged to produce time-based work in forms adapted to their interests.

Additional work required of students taking the graduate version. 

4.356/4.357 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

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.

4.301 Syllabus (MIT Certificate protected)

Examines themes in the history of design, with emphasis on Euro-American theory and practice in their global contexts. Addresses the historical design of communications, objects, and environments as meaningful processes of decision-making, adaptation, and innovation. Critically assesses the dynamic interaction of design with politics, economics, technology, and culture in the past and at present.

This seminar examines episodes in the history of art and design from the perspective of the materials used in their production. Engaging a variety of material substances and examining selected case studies of their manipulation across diverse geographies from the ancient world to the mid twentieth century, the class asks how materials have historically conditioned the conception and meanings of artworks and how a focus on matter can bring into view the environmental impacts and the human costs of design. What meanings, for example, did metals or minerals mined from the earth or imported from distant parts of the world hold for early modern viewers? How can the study of furniture inlaid with ivory from Southeast Asia or made from mahogany sourced in the eighteenth-century Caribbean expose the blindspots attending the global systems of labor and transportation that moved such materials? Conversely, how might the uses of wood veneer reveal historical ideologies and/or period imaginaries of nature, time, and a nascent ecological awareness? What can the material attractions of porcelain or of plate glass and mirror glass reveal about cultural imaginaries in Asia and in Europe? And what does clay have to do with the styling and planned obsolescence for which the twentieth-century American automobile industry was renowned? 

Inspired by Charles and Ray Eames' canonical Powers of Ten, explores the relationship between science and engineering through the lens of design. Examines how transformations in science and technology have influenced design thinking and vice versa. Provides interdisciplinary skills and methods to represent, model, design and fabricate objects, machines, and systems using new computational and fabrication tools. Aims to develop methodologies for design research of interdisciplinary problems.

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.