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Monday, February 23 at 7:00 PM
“Energy, Community, Communication”
Jegan Vincent de Paul, Wendy Jacob, Jae Rhim Lee
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‘Collision’ is a cross-disciplinary lecture series that examines the intersection of research in science, technology and contemporary art. This event pairs current research from the MIT Visual Arts Program with cutting edge research in other disciplines including mobile communication design, neuroscience, and robotics. The kick-off event introduces research-based artistic practice, presenting three current projects initiated in and supported by the MIT Visual Arts Program and the MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P).
Location:
Joan Jonas Performance Hall, MIT Visual Arts Program, Bldg N51-337, 3FL
265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139
(see directions below).
For more information:
http://visualarts.mit.edu
vap@mit.edu
617-253-5229
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SPEAKERS
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Jegan Vincent de Paul – Community Grid Project
Jegan Vincent de Paul is a second-year graduate student in the MIT Visual Arts Program. His current work deals with global energy access. With a background in architecture, Vincent de Paul has worked with Lot-ek, New York and Ai Wei Wei, Beijing. Project collaborators (UROPs Rachel Cheney and Jennifer Tran, and CMS graduate student Jason Rockwood) will also be present. The Community Grid Project envisions a novel utilization of advances in ultracapacitor technology: using human labor to close the gap between communities with access to energy resources and those without, through the physical transport of personal ultracapacitors. Human labor and capacitors are combined to bring essential levels of energy to everyone.
Wendy Jacob – Autism Studio
Wendy Jacob is an artist and research associate at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT. She directs the newly-established Autism Studio in the MIT Visual Arts Program. Since 1989, she has also been part of the artists‘ collaborative Haha, whose site-based projects and public interventions have been shown internationally. Autism Studio is conceived as a multi-disciplinary studio where new and creative responses to living with autism are developed. In the United States, the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders has risen to one in every 150 children. The studio aims to explore perceptual features afforded by the broad range of autistic experience, and to create objects, spaces, and events that resonate with these experiences. Projects include a club to explore open space, an evening of video screenings and paper shredding, and the design of chairs that hug and clothing and architecture that extend the sensory reach.
Jae Rhim Lee – FEMA Trailer Project
Jae Rhim Lee is a Visiting Lecturer and alumna of the MIT Visual Arts Program. She also directs the FEMA Trailer Project. Her artistic practice includes N=1=0=Infinity, a post-apocalyptic, urban eco-burial system. The FEMA Trailer Project transforms one of the 94,000 surplus trailers into an alternative vehicle, to be donated to a community or non-profit organization. The FEMA Trailer has come to symbolize many of the environmental, social, economic, and administrative challenges associated with temporary disaster housing. The FEMA Trailer Project catalyzes positive change in these areas, and applies environmental justice and permaculture principles to the conceptualization and re-design of the trailer.
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SPECIAL THANKS
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Thanks to the Council for the Arts at MIT and the Office of the Dean, MIT School of Architecture and Planning for support for these projects.
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DIRECTIONS
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The MIT Visual Arts Program is located adjacent to the MIT Museum at 265 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. Enter through the grey door on Front Street and take the elevator to the third floor. Exit to your left and go down the ramp. The Joan Jonas Performance Hall is located on the right. .
By Public Transportation
Take the Red Line to Central Square. Walk four blocks along Massachusetts Avenue towards Boston and the Charles River or take the #1 bus to the Front Street stop.