Art, Culture and Technology

MIT’s inaugural Future Fest, a new festival exploring the future of science, technology, art, and design will be held across the MIT campus from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4, writes Mark Feeney for The Boston Globe. “More than 50 events looking at art, design, science, technology, and their interactions will be held on the MIT campus,” the staff write. “Those events held at the museum will be free throughout the festival, which concludes on Oct. 4 with the Cambridge Science Carnival.” 

MassLive’s Joshua Macht explains how the MIT Museum is a “fitting” setting to host the honorees of MassLive’s “Most Influential Innovators” list, which includes President Sally Kornbluth and a number of other MIT faculty and alumni. “The museum welcomes all to participate in MIT’s unique culture of problem solving and playful creativity,” writes Macht. “It is also producing the inaugural MIT Future Fest, a new, annual festival exploring the future of science, technology, art and design.”  

President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey will kick off the festivities at MIT’s inaugural Future Fest, which aims to bring “together leaders across higher education, government and tech to explore the future of science, technology, art and design across MIT's campus for five days,” writes the Boston Business Journal’s Stephen MacLeod. The festival will also include the Cambridge Science Carnival, featuring “100 booths and activities, and other demonstrations, including a robot petting zoo, a floating installation at the MIT Sailing Pavilion known as the Adaptive Archipelago and the public unveiling of MIT’s new design hub and home of MIT's School of Architecture and Planning, the Met Warehouse.” 

In a Financial Times opinion piece, Prof. Carlo Ratti discusses alternatives to implementing traditional air conditioning systems, which move rather than reduce heat, that could be used in Europe as temperatures continue to rise. “The best answer, then, is a mixed system, co-ordinated in real time, with sensors to track temperature, occupancy and demand, and algorithms deciding when to produce, store and distribute cooling in step with the electricity grid,” writes Ratti. 

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece, Prof. Carlo Ratti and contributor Mario Carpo make the case that AI is built to imitate human creativity and is less capable of original design. “In a profession that defines itself through invention, GenAI increasingly is seen less as a creative genius and more as a ‘stochastic parrot’ — a term introduced in 2021 by leading AI researchers to describe a technology that learns to repeat the most likely sequences found in whatever data it’s been shown,” write Ratti and Carpo. 

Graduate students Alfonso Parra Rubio and Erik Strand from the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms worked with the Boston Public Library and the Boston Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture to create a chain-like aluminum sculpture, which will be on display at the library until November, writes Axios’ Steph Solis. “It's a feat of science-driven design and art,” notes Solis.  

A new tool developed by MIT researchers could help violin designers test how an instrument might sound when certain dimensions or properties are changed without even pulling out a bow, reports Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica. The researchers crafted a virtual violin, “a computer simulation tool that can capture the precise physics of the instrument and even reproduce a realistic sound of a plucked string,” Ouellette explains. 

Forbes reporter Tom Teicholz spotlights the artistic work of alumna Lauren Bon. “Over the last two decades, as part of her art practice, Bon has undertaken projects that involve an exploration of urban natural resources in ways that have a positive environmental and societal impact,” writes Teicholz. 

Michael John Gorman, director of the MIT Museum, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney about how science museums can help facilitate the “pleasure of finding things out.” Gorman adds that museums “can give people that spark, that hunger to learn and to dive in deeper. If we are that meeting place for the amazing minds we have around MIT and Cambridge and the Boston area with the broader public, then we can ignite a lot of those sparks. The challenge is not that we have too few ideas. It’s that’s we have too many and how do we shepherd them.”

WHDH reporter Polikseni Manxhari spotlights the Kendall Square “Rollerama,” an outdoor roller-skating rink created by MIT. The rink “offers free skate rentals, free lessons, live music, vendors, concessions and more,” explains Manxhari. “It’s not just a roller skating rink,” says Kathryn Brown, director of real estate at MIT’s Investment Management Company. “There’s a lot of people that come into this space and enjoy just the music and being outdoors.” 

Rollerama, a pop-up roller skating rink at Kendall Common, has become a “corner of liveliness” this summer, providing the public with free fun and art in the form of a new mural by Massiel Grullon, reports Izzy Bryars for The Boston Globe. “We thought it could help people do something fun together, and start to give people a sense of what the Kendall Common build out will be like,” says Sarah Gallop, director of MIT’s Office of Government and Community Relations. 

WBZ NewsRadio’s Emma Friedman visits Rollerama, a free, outdoor pop-up roller skating rink that’s “all about bringing the community together and having fun in the space.” Now open for the summer in Cambridge's Kendall Square, Friedman reports that Rollerama at Kendall Common was put together by MIT's real estate group to bring the community to the newly-acquired space on the corner of Broadway and Third Street. “It’s been such a hit,” exclaims Sarah Gallop, director of government and community relations. "Over the last decade, MIT's been focused on bringing increased vibrancy to Kendall Square." 

New York Times Style Magazine reporter Susan Dominus spotlights the “maximalist, category-defying work” of MIT Prof. Emerita Joan Jonas, who is being honored with a retrospective at the MoMA. “Perception is something that really is an important part of my thinking,” Jonas explains. “How does the audience perceive my work? How does my work change their perception?” Michael Rakowitz SMVisS ’98 notes that Jonas, “is a foundational and transformative figure not just in the realm of video and performance and feminist art but in art that moves away from anthropocentrism.”

Tomashi Jackson SMACT ’12 has been awarded the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum’s Rappaport Prize which honors local artists who have “demonstrated significant creativity and vision,” reports Emma Glassman-Hughes for The Boston Globe. Jackson says much of her work “is defined by the push and pull of ‘grief and joy’ and how they appear differently in public and private contexts,” writes Glassman-Hughes.

Prof. Sarah Williams speaks with Erin Langer at Metropolis about the Civic Data Design Lab’s Motivational Tapestry, a large woven art piece that uses data from the United Nations World Food Program to visually represent the individual motivations of 1,624 Central Americans who have migrated to the U.S. “By allowing a dialogue to open up and be less defensive, art allows us to understand and conceptualize an issue from a different vantage point,” explains Williams.