Arts, Technology and society

Los Angelos Times reporter Mark Swed spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s “already and not yet,” a new symphony that “handles democracy not as a done deal, but a series of scary questions — and doesn’t trust the heartless machines for answers.” “Already and not yet” challenges us to make the world more beautiful by looking deeply into ourselves,” writes Swed. The orchestral score treats “musicians as creative artists and the audience as capable of opening its collective mind.”  

Mike Beigel ‘70, who invented Mu-Tron III, considered to be “the first commercial envelope filter pedal [that] allowed guitar players to achieve a synthesizer-like sound” used in popular 1970s music, has died at 79, reports Alex Williams for The New York Times. “The Mu-Tron III was the most renowned of several effects pedals that Mr. Beigel invented for Musitronics, a New Jersey-based company that he co-founded in 1972,” writes Williams. Musitronics, “produced a variety of sought-after pedals, including the Mu-Tron Octave Divider, Phasor, Flanger and Bi-Phase, which have been adopted by notables like Neil Young, Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and John Frusciante, the Chili Peppers guitarist.” 

The Boston Globe’s Mark Feeney spotlights the “Bounce juggler (W.C. Fields),” a machine modeled after the comedian W.C. Fields, on display at the MIT Museum, that juggles three metal balls and was created by the late Prof. Claude Shannon SM ’40, PhD ’40. “It’s one thing to be known as ‘the father of information theory,’ as Shannon is. His work in mathematics, electrical engineering, cryptography, and computer science was that important,” writes Feeney. “But Shannon was also a chess player, unicyclist, juggler, and inventor. Shannon combined his talent for engineering and imagination with his love of humor and juggling in the ‘Bounce juggler.’”  

Prof. Tod Machover’s composition “already and not yet,” was performed by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra along with an AI system that listens to musicians and adds improvisations, reports A.Z. Madonna for The Boston Globe. “Music is something that’s meant to plumb your soul, and have you discover things,” says Machover. The composition is “about my view of where we are, how to take a deep breath and figure out, gather strength to go somewhere else, and then what a possible future of democracy might be.”  

Prof. Tod Machover speaks to WBUR’s Andrea Shea about “already and not yet” an interactive composition he wrote for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and an AI instrument developed by Machover and graduate student Manaswi Mishra. Machover explains that they designed the AI tools so that they’re “always going to make a kind of variation, a coloration, an extension of what the musician's playing – but exactly what it's going to do I do not have complete control over. I'm trying to show that it [AI] can be integrated in a beautiful, provocative and interesting way in a serious piece of music.”  

Prof. Behnaz Farahi joins GBH’s, “The Curiosity Desk," to discuss “Ocean of Dreams,” a public art installation that projects participants’ collective hopes for the future into a “living ocean,” which is on display at Kendall Square Plaza as part of MIT Future Fest. “At the moment when we have so many conversations about the future that are shaped by uncertainty about AI, war, climate change, and displacements, I hope this work creates a space for something a little different,” says Farahi. “Before we can build a different future, we first have to be able to imagine one.” 

The Boston Symphony Orchestra will perform the world premiere of Prof. Tod Machover’s “already and not yet,” reports A.Z. Madonna for The Boston Globe. Madonna notes that Machover, “has a decades-long resume of experimenting with artificial intelligence technology in music-making, such as in the 1987 science fiction opera ‘VALIS.’” 

New York Times reporter Annabel Keenan highlights the “Remembering the Future” exhibit at the MIT Museum, a sculptural installation created by Janet Echelman that uses “climate data from the last ice age to the present, as well as projected future environments, to create a geometric design.” Echelman worked with MIT faculty, including Prof. Raffaele Ferrari and Prof. Caitlin Mueller, to bring the project to life. Mueller explains that she developed a “high-fidelity digital twin of the sculpture generated through our computational simulation that you can orbit and pan through to get perspectives that you can’t see physically in the space.” 

Prof. Behnaz Farahi and her team have created “Gaze to the Stars,” an art installation that features video projections of eyes onto the MIT Dome while sharing stories of aspiration, struggle, longing, and hope, reports Emily Maher for WCVB. “Farahi and her team created a space, a pod, where people looked into a screen of stars as their eyes were scanned,” explains Maher. “Next, an AI voice began encouraging them to share their stories.” 

Prof. Behnaz Farahi speaks with WBUR reporter Maddie Browning about her “Gaze to the Stars” exhibit, which will bring illuminated projections of eyes to the MIT Dome. “This is an incredible time to really use art and technology, not to just create something which is provocative, but also have a meaningful experience to share stories that matters,” says Farahi. 

Diane Hoskins '79, a member of the MIT Corporation, has been named a CNBC Changemaker for her impact on the business world, reports Ian Thomas for CNBC. “Over her more than three-decade career at Gensler, she has risen up the firm’s ranks to now serve as its global co-chair alongside Andy Cohen, who Hoskins shares long-term strategy and day-to-day operations with and previously served as co-CEO with for nearly two decades,” writes Thomas. “Hoskins has also been at the center of the discussion around how workspace design intersects with employee performance and engagement, overseeing Gensler’s Workplace Survey and influencing how the industry at large designs offices and other spaces.” 

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.”

Boston Globe reporter Malcom Gay writes that Michael John Gorman, “a museum professional who has created and run several organizations devoted to science and the arts,” has been named the next director of the MIT Museum. At the MIT Museum, "Gorman inherits a dynamic new cultural venue replete with gallery space, forum areas, learning labs, a public maker hub, and collection of some 1.5 million objects,” Gay writes.

Ken Knowlton PhD ’62 - a pioneer in the science and art of computer graphics and the creator of some of the first computer-generated pictures, portraits and movies - died June 16 at the age of 91, reports Cade Metz for The New York Times. “Knowlton was the only person to ever use the BEFLIX language – he and his colleagues quickly replaced it with other tools and techniques – the ideas behind this technology would eventually overhaul the movie business,” writes Metz.

Assia Boundaoui, a fellow at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, writes for The Los Angeles Times about her experience as a Muslim American filmmaker. “Despite the many ways we have been marginalized within the film industry, Muslim and Middle Eastern filmmakers will continue to tell our stories – stories where our humanity is assumed, not a subject of debate,” writes Boundaoui.