Arts

Graduate student Alex Kachkine has developed a new technique that “uses AI-generated polymer films to physically restore damaged paintings in hours,” reports Benj Edwards for Ars Technica. “Kachkine's method works by printing a transparent ‘mask’ containing thousands of precisely color-matched regions that conservators can apply directly to an original artwork,” explains Edwards. “Unlike traditional restoration, which permanently alters the painting, these masks can reportedly be removed whenever needed. So it's a reversible process that does not permanently change a painting.” 

Guardian reporter Ian Sample highlights how graduate student Alex Kachkine has developed a new approach to restoring age-damaged artwork in hours. “The technique draws on artificial intelligence and other computer tools to create a digital reconstruction of the damaged painting,” explains Sample. “This is then printed on to a transparent polymer sheet that is carefully laid over the work.” 

Graduate student Alex Kachkine speaks with Nature reporter Amanda Heidt about his work developing a new restoration method for restoring damaged artwork. The method uses “digital tools to create a ‘mask’ of pigments that can be printed and varnished onto damaged paintings,” explains Heidt. The method “reduces both the cost and time associated with art restoration and could one day give new life to many of the paintings held in institutional collections — perhaps as many as 70% — that remain hidden from public view owing to damage.” 

Nature spotlights graduate student Alex Kachkine – an engineer, art collector and art conservator – on his quest to develop a new AI-powered, art restoration method, reports Geoff Marsh for Nature. “My hope is that conservators around the planet will be able to use these techniques to restore paintings that have never been seen by the general public,” says Kachkine. “Many institutions have paintings that arrived at them a century ago, have never been shown because they are so damaged and there are no resources to restore them. And hopefully this technique means we will be able to see more of those publicly.” 

WBUR reporter Amelia Mason spotlights MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco) and his work exploring “the creative possibilities of site-responsive music.” Jaco “calls the process of making these songs ‘ghotiing,’ which is confusingly pronounced “fishing” – a phonetic joke in which the “f” sound is drawn from the “gh” in ‘rough,’ and so on,” explains Mason. “Fiasco uses ghotiing as a teaching tool, sending his MIT students on outings to various public art pieces across campus to ‘fish’ for musical inspiration. He ultimately hopes to make a song for every piece of art on MIT’s campus.” 

On Tuesday, May 6, the MIT Museum is hosting “Seeing and Understanding the Unknown,” a panel discussion to celebrate the opening of their latest exhibit, “Monsters of the Deep,” reports Adelaide Parker for The Boston Globe. “MIT physicists and curators will guide you through centuries of scientists’ work picturing the unseen — from 16th-century zoologists exploring life underwater to modern physicists modeling black holes,” explains Parker. 

Working with the List Visual Arts Center, MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco) has created GHOTIING MIT: Public Art, “nine original compositions using ghotiing, a term of his own invention, which proves that rap is a reactive form of expression,” reports Candace McDuffie for The Boston Globe. “Ghotiing (pronounced “fishing”) encourages students to engross themselves in different art forms and environments to devise original work,” explains McDuffie. “According to Fiasco, inspiration is taken from appreciating the landscape and outdoor painting as opposed to a recording studio. The result is usually music that feels deeper and more organic.” 

The Guardian reporter Veronica Esposito spotlights GHOTIING MIT: Public Art, a collection of raps inspired by seven of the Institute’s public artworks developed by MIT Visiting Scholar Wasalu Jaco (Lupe Fiasco) in collaboration with the MIT List Visual Arts Center. “The nine-track effort (seven of which are currently available) is a cohesive collection of music with a distinct jazz flavor that feels like a throwback to the Native Tongues era of hip-hop,” writes Espositio. For Jaco, “these tracks are an emanation of the environment that he fished them from.” 

Boston Globe reporter Mark Feeney spotlights“Monsters of the Deep: Between Imagination and Science,” a new exhibit at the MIT Museum that offers “views of whales and related sea creatures, monstrous and otherwise, afforded by more than 40 maps and prints and books, some dating to the 16th century.” Feeney notes that the exhibit dives into the “conceptual and stimulating: a kind of case study in the nature of our knowledge about nature. In this particular case, that natural knowledge concerns whales.”

“AT MIT innovation ranges from awe-inspiring technology to down-to-earth creativity,” notes Chronicle during a visit to campus to peek behind the scenes at the innovations underway at the Institute. Classes taught by Prof. Erik Demaine are a “mix of rigorous math and creative collaboration,” host Anthony Everett explains, highlighting how Demaine’s work in computational origami has found its way into practical applications in such fields as medicine, architecture and space exploration. “I think origami provides a really powerful tool for making transformable shapes,” Demaine relates. 

President Sally Kornbluth shares her love of the Boston Pops with Boston Globe reporter Ian Prasad Philbrick in a roundup of the Greater Boston area’s historical sights, restaurants, art museums, and more. “They’re a great mixture of playful and serious," says Kornbluth of what makes the Pops such a standout cultural experience, "sort of a good microcosm of Boston.”

WBUR’s Maddie Browning spotlights “List Projects 32: Elif Saydam,” a new exhibit at the MIT List Visual Arts Center by Elif Saydam that explores gentrification through art. Saydam paints “urban scenes like gas stations and apartment buildings, then layers them with gold,” explains Browning. “Saydam’s work references historical painting traditions like miniature painting and illuminated manuscripts.” 

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. 

Prof. Behnaz Farahi speaks with GBH’s The Culture Show host Jared Bowen about her new eye-catching work “Gaze to the Stars,” an exhibit that will transform the MIT Dome into a living canvas, showcasing video projections of eyes gazing at the stars, as part of the Artfinity art festival. “We are very excited about the possibility of bringing the community at MIT together and the question was how the community, MIT and beyond, can get the sense of community, the sense of unity, the sense of connectedness,” says Farahi on the inspiration behind her work.