Gramophone contributor Laurence Vittes spotlights Prof. Tod Machover’s “Death and the Powers,” an opera about robots and humans that has recently been released as an “electrifying surround-sound thriller.” Vittes writes that “Machover’s arsenal of music stands triumphantly on its own, fusing and defusing technoflash from the composer’s MIT Media Lab with rich writing for Gil Rose’s Boston Modern Orchestra ensemble.”
New York Times Style Magazine reporter Zoë Lescaze explores the work of artist Agnieszka Kurant and her new installation at MIT. “Looping black lines composed of high-tech lights were designed to simulate the flow of ink scrawl across the facades of two new buildings, as though an invisible hand were repeatedly signing the walls,” writes Lescaze. “Kurant worked with computer scientists to create two collective signatures — one for the scientific and academic community at MIT and another for Cambridge residents.”
The MIT List Visual Arts Center is hosting the Max Wasserman Forum: Another World, which features “two prerecorded panel discussions that’ll touch upon subjects pertaining to art in the digital realm,” reports Magdiela Matta for WBUR. “This event will leave you thinking more critically about moving toward a future where there’s a world of endless possibilities in how we present media,” Matta writes.
Reporting for WBUR, Amelia Mason spotlights a collaboration between graduate student Ben Bloomberg and Jacob Collier, a singer and former MIT artist-in-residence. Bloomberg explains that he and Collier aim to use technology as a means to augment human capabilities, explaining that, “technology should do things that technology is good at, and the people should do things that people are good at.”
MIT Media Lab fellow and “bionic artist” Viktoria Modesta writes for a special CNN feature about how technology is changing what it means to be human. Modesta, who voluntarily amputated her leg due to constant pain, writes that “fusing my body with technology feels like a philosophical exploration of humanity. It is art.”
MIT alumna Kara Elliott-Ortega has been named Boston’s new chief of arts and culture, reports Don Aucoin for The Boston Globe. Elliott-Ortega, who received a master’s degree in city planning from MIT, explains that she feels the “arts aren’t just a stand-alone sector or area of work, but are a part of everything the city is doing.’’
MIT graduate students Ellen Shakespear and Stephanie Lee are opening “an artist workspace and exhibition pop-up,” known as Spaceus, in the historic Roslindale substation, reports Jules Struck for Boston Magazine. The startup, which is partly funded by MIT, “provides a sustainable service to local artists, but also serves as a neighborhood gathering place,” according to Lee.
Mark Feeney writes for The Boston Globe about the exhibit “György Kepes Photographs: The MIT Years, 1946-1985,” which is on display at the MIT Museum through July 2018. This is the second show in a two-part series that celebrates the 50th anniversary of MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, which Kepes founded as an Institute professor.
Boston Globe reporter Malcom Gay highlights how a number of local arts organizations, MIT List Visual Arts Center, are presenting a series of exhibitions exploring the relationship between art and technology. As part of the series, the List will present “Before Projection: Video Sculpture 1974-1995.”