Join STUDIO.nano for the next Resonances Lecture!Lindsay Caplan Assistant Professor, History of Art & Architecture Brown UniversityDate: April 28, 2025 Time: 4:30 PM — 5:30 PM ET Location: Building 12, Room 0168Resonances will host a roundtable after the lecture with Lindsay Caplan; Mark Jarzombek, professor of the History and Theory of Architecture at MIT; and Judith Barry, professor of Art, Culture, and Technology at MIT; moderated by Ardalan SadeghiKivi, STUDIO.nano liaison and lecturer of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, where they will further explore the unique and curious narratives of how science and artistic expression have informed and influenced one another across different domains and modes of cultural production. Following, a reception will be held in the MIT.nano East Lobby.RegisterANALOGICAL ENGINES—COLLABORATIONS ACROSS ART AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 1960SThis presentation will examine artists working in Europe and the Americas in the 1960s who engage with computers, cybernetics, and early AI. These interdisciplinary activities were more often conceptual than actual: while some artists sought out corporations to gain access to mainframes or collaborate directly with engineers, far more mobilized analogies between humans and machines to reconceptualize the terms with which they worked. Analogies between humans and machine abound in 1960s artistic practice: creativity as algorithmic, style as statistical, perception as pattern recognition, knowledge as information processing, and life as structured by—even equated with—technology.In this talk, Caplan will focus on a central nexus of speculative experiments in simulated existence: the transnational community of artists involved with the Signals Gallery and broadside in London from 1964 to 1966, with particular emphasis on Liliane Lijn. Examining her light sculptures, poem machines, and other abstract artists in the Signals gallery milieu, she will discuss the philosophical and political motivations for collaborations across art, technology, and science and the implications of these historical examples on our technologically mediated existence today.BIOGRAPHYLindsay Caplan specializes in twentieth and twenty-first century art, with a focus on the intersections of art, technology, and politics. Her first book, Arte Programmata: Freedom, Control, and the Computer in 1960s Italy(University of Minnesota, 2022), examines how early computer artists in Italy deployed new technologies to probe the relationship between subjects and their environment and to explore the nature of human agency, turning artistic questions regarding medium, authorial creativity, and spectatorship to the service of reimagining society in its digital dimensions. The book received a Millard Meiss Publication Grant from the College Art Association and was a Media Ecology Book Awards Finalist.Other publications have appeared in exhibition catalogues, edited collections, and journals including Grey Room, ARTMargins, Piano B, The Scholar & Feminist Online, Outland, Art in America, and e-flux journal. Topics include art and labor, the digital humanities, digital art history, and the social concerns that motivated generative artists working in the 1960s and today. She is currently working on two books: a co-edited volume (with Kerry Greaves, University of Copenhagen), Contemporary Art in a Time of Democratic Crisis, which interrogates the idea of modeling democracy in contemporary European art since the 1990s and is under contract with University of Manchester Press. This volume has been awarded two publishing grants from European institutions: the Beckett Foundation and New Carlsberg. Her second book project is a comparative study of artists who use analogies between humans and machines to reimagine creativity and collective life. Looking at Europe and the Americas from the fifties to eighties, it charts a history in which radically destabilized notions of the human were forged at the intersections of art and technology.Her teaching spans the history of modern and contemporary art and includes courses such as Art and Technology from Futurism to Hacktivism, Abstraction in Theory and Practice, and Dada and Surrealism: Anarchy, Exile, Alterity. In Fall 2023, she taught a Collaborate Humanities Seminar (supported by the Cogut Institute for the Humanities) titled Form and Formalism with Govind Menon, Professor of Applied Mathematics. She is affiliated with the Italian Studies Department.ABOUT THE RESONANCES LECTURESThe Resonances Lectures navigate the intersection of contemporary art, pure and applied sciences, and everyday life. Inaugurated in the Spring of 2025 by STUDIO.nano, this lecture and panel series seeks to gather artists, designers, scientists, engineers, and historians who examined critically how scientific endeavors shape artistic production and vice versa. Their insights expose the historical context on how art and science are made and distributed in society, and offer hints at the possible futures of such productions.An exploration of the history and present meaning of curiosity, attention, and the urge to know, Resonances shuttles engagingly between rigor and intuition, inviting both the members of MIT community and the general public audience to further engage with and learn from, the past and future of interdisciplinary ideas across vastly different domains and scales.

Speaker: Cameron KrulewskiTitle: Invertible Functorial Field Theory for Symmetry Breaking and Interactions in Quantum Field TheoryZoom Link: https://mit.zoom.us/j/5474752564

Join us for an in-person dinner or virtual meeting with Lydia Yu! Students can attend in person to enjoy dinner while meeting Lydia, or join virtually via Zoom (which will be projected for all in-person participants).Lydia is experienced in building data science and machine learning solutions within a variety of fields, ranging from finance and real estate to academic research and consulting. She currently works as a data scientist at Visa where she builds the deep learning fraud detection models that all Visa card transactions go through. Prior to this role, she worked at IBM Consulting where she developed machine learning solutions for a variety of external clients and helped lead the initial movement towards GenAI product development on her team. She is passionate about constantly learning new skills, building strong teams, and empowering women in tech.Lydia earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees from MIT in 2022 - one in Business Analytics and another in Computer Science, Economics, and Data Science. During her time at MIT, she lived in Next House, was involved in MISTI Spain and S-Lab, and participated in Extreme PE for intramural sports. She is also currently an alumni advisor for MIT students.Register in Handshake. Dinner will be served for the first 30 attendees. This CAPD event is open to MIT undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and alumni.

Join us on Monday evenings for Argentine tango classes with outstanding instructors Fernanda Ghi, Guillermo Merlo and Mia Dalglish (read their bios on the link). Whether you are completely new to tango, or already have some experience, you will find a friendly environment in which to learn new things and improve your technique. You don't have to bring a partner, since the classes involve rotations with all participants.More info on website: https://sites.google.com/site/mittangoclub/products-services/2025-spring-series?authuser=0

Yang Sheng "Life Nourishing" Qigong is an extremely powerful tool for bringing out one's natural human potential and optimal fitness. Physical health and mental well being are a direct result of the practice.The core of our training is 'Zhan Zhuang' (Standing Meditation). It is designed to activate 'Zheng Qi' (True or Proper Qi). The effects of this training are rapid with deep therapeutic results producing a unified and balanced 'mind, body, and breath.'Registration is required on our wellness class website. If you do not already have an account on this website, you'll need to create one. This is fee-based class and open to the entire MIT community.

A celebration of creativity and community at MITArtfinity is a new festival of the arts at MIT featuring 80 free performing and visual arts events, celebrating creativity and community at the Institute. Artfinity launches with the opening of the new Edward and Joyce Linde Music Building on February 15, 2025, continues with a concentration of events February 28-March 16, and culminates with the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts public lecture by 2025 recipient artist and designer Es Devlin on May 1, 2025, and a concert by Grammy-winning rapper and Visiting Professor Lupe Fiasco on May 2, 2025. Artfinity embodies MIT’s commitment to creativity, community, and the intersection of art, science and technology. We invite you to join us in this celebration, explore the diverse events, and experience the innovative spirit that defines the arts at MIT.About the Artists Artfinity features the innovative work of MIT faculty, students, staff, and alumni, alongside guest artists from the Greater Boston area and beyond.About the Activities & Events All 80 events are open to the public, including dozens of concerts and performances plus an array of visual arts such as projections, films, installations, exhibitions, and augmented reality experiences, as well as lectures and workshops for attendees to participate in. With a wide range of visual and performing arts events open to all, Artfinity embodies MIT’s commitment to the arts and the intersection of art, science, and technology.About the Presenters Artfinity is an institute-sponsored event organized by the Office of the Arts at MIT with faculty leads Institute Professor of Music Marcus Thompson and Professor of Art, Culture and Technology Azra Akšamija. Departments, labs, centers, and student groups across MIT are presenting partners.Visit arts.mit.edu for more information about the arts at MIT.