HISTORY

The Art, Culture, and Technology (ACT) program at MIT is an academic program and hub of critical art practice and discourse within the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ACT is headed by distinguished artist-professors and includes a dynamic group of artist-practitioner graduate students, visiting artist-lecturers, affiliates, and guests. Through an integrated approach to pedagogy, public events programming, exhibitions, and publications, ACT builds a community of artist-thinkers exploring art’s complex relationship to culture and technology. While ACT is not an art school in the traditional sense, the program’s mission is to promote leadership in critical artistic practices by creating art that is a vital means of experimenting with new forms of knowledge and cultural production, while continually questioning what an artistic research and learning environment can be within contemporary culture.

As part of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning, ACT inhabits a vibrant ecosystem of programs, centers, and labs that promotes the interplay between art, culture, technology, science, and design.

Though the fine arts at MIT have a long history, contemporary art made its effective entry in the form of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS). The CAVS was created in 1967 by György Kepes and situated within the School of Architecture and Planning. Hungarian-born Kepes, collaborator of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, emigrated to the U.S. in 1937. He taught at the New Bauhaus in Chicago and then at the Illinois Institute of Design alongside Mies van der Rohe before coming to MIT.

A community of innovators. CAVS provided long-term appointments to a wide range of important innovators in the visual arts, environmental arts, dance, and new media: composer Maryanne Amacher, avant-garde filmmaker Stan van der Beek, artist and educator Lowry Burgess, video artist Peter Campus, performance artist Charlotte Moorman, artist Nam June Paik and many others.

CAVS leadership. Otto Piene, a member of the ZERO group, succeeded Prof. Kepes as director in 1974. Following Piene’s retirement in 1994, the internationally-known artist and VAP faculty member, artist Krzysztof Wodiczko, became director of CAVS. Steve Benton, inventor of the white-light “rainbow” hologram, directed CAVS from 1996 until his death in 2003; and in 2004, Wodiczko returned as director with the goal of emphasizing critical engagement with the intellectual and ethical questions posed by the social construction of advanced technologies. With the appointment of Associate Director Larissa Harris, and under the leadership of Krzysztof Wodiczko, the Center embarked on a revitalization program which included creating a visiting artist program and strong focus on transdisciplinary production embedded in MIT’s scientific and technological community.