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MIT takes a turn in the limelight for the October 29 broadcast of WGBH-TV's "Greater Boston Arts." The program, which will air at 9pm on Channel 2, presents an interview with Artist-in-Residence Tina Packer, shot in Kresge Auditorium, as part of a story on the upcoming world music presentation of UMABATHA: The Zulu Macbeth. A short "calendar" segment also features MIT's Gamelan Galak Tika, filmed at one of their rehearsals in the new Endicott World Music Center, in conjunction with their upcoming November 15 performance. The program will be repeated on Sunday, Nov. 2 at 4:30pm and again on Wednesday, Nov. 5 at 10 pm on Channel 44.
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On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science, a new book by George M. Whitesides and science photographer Felice Frankel, who has been a research scientist and artist-in-residence at the Edgerton Center since 1994, has recently been published by Chronicle Books. "A checkerboard of water droplets, a shard of broken glass or a swatch of plastic fabric reveal themselves as things of colorful, otherworldly beauty," wrote Corey S. Powell in a review in the October issue of Scientific American, calling the volume "a wonderful achievement indeed." Images from Ms. Frankel's book can be seen through Sunday, Nov. 2 in an exhibition of the same name at the MIT Museum.
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Associate Professor Ritsuko Taho's public art installation in Central Square titled Multicultural Manifestoes has been completed after a two-year planning and fabrication period during which the design changed to comply with practical and artistic considerations from many members of the Cambridge community. The project incorporates the written dreams of the diverse communities of Central Square, inscribed on scroll-like cylindrical towers.

"I'm very happy with the final outcome," said Professor Taho of the architecture department's Visual Arts Program. "From late afternoon through evening there is great deal of interplay with light," she noted, adding that she particularly likes the view at night when the glass towers are lit.

Professor Taho said that through the installation period, people were responding positively to the project, especially as they discovered the 48 different translations of the word 'dream' on the glass towers. She also noted the popularity of the interactive elements - spinning brass cylinders that chime as they move. The project received funding through a grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 22, 1997.

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