"Reflection Loop," Kelly Heaton's interactive installation in which viewers see themselves reflected in a wall of Furby dolls, is on view at Bitforms (529 W. 20th St., 2nd floor, New York, N.Y.) through Feb. 16. Heaton (S.M. 2000 in media arts and sciences) originally created the reactive sculpture with support from a grant from the Council for the Arts at MIT. "When you walk in front of Kelly Heaton's sculpture, dozens of eyes snap open, beaks whir and click, and voices chirp in mechanical chatter," wrote Janet Kornblum for USA Today. "The sculpture is, in a sense, alive--if you consider Furbys to be a life form."
Music and theater arts lecturer Laura Harrington's play, "Hallowed Ground," is receiving its Maine premiere at the Portland Stage through Feb. 17. "Harrington forges a fine language, capable of sounding like real speech while packing a poetic punch," wrote Jason Wilkins in a review for the Maine Sunday Telegram (Feb. 3). Set in the last days of the Civil War, the play won the 2000-01 Clauder Competition and a 2001 Boston Independent Reviewers of New England IRNE Award for Best New Play (Small Company). For ticket information, call (207) 774-1043.
Electronic musician/inventor/conductor Teresa Marrin Nakra (Ph.D. 2000 in media arts and sciences), artistic director of Immersion Music Inc., presents the second of two Learning From Performers events this month at Harvard University. On Saturday, Feb. 23, she'll lead a group of Harvard undergraduates in "An Evening of Immersion Music" at 8 p.m. (tickets are $5 or $3 for students). She gave a free lecture/demonstration on "The State of the Art in Live Music Performance Technology" on Feb. 12. The Feb. 23 event is at the Adams House Pool Theater (Bow Street between Plympton and DeWolfe streets). Nakra is the 2001-02 Clifton Visiting Artist at Harvard. For more information, call (617) 495-8676.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 13, 2002.
