Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Visual Arts Program records

The MIT Visual Arts Program was established in 1989 in the Department of Architecture by Professor Ed Levine. In December of 2009, it merged with the Center for Advanced Visual Studies to form the current MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT). The Visual Arts Program facilities were located on the first and third floors of building N51 at 265 Massachusetts Avenue. In the summer of 2010, after the official shift to ACT, the program moved into the Wiesner Building (E15) and the newly constructed Media Lab Extension Building (E14). The program offered an undergraduate Bachelor of Science in Art and Design (BSAD) program plus a highly selective two-year graduate Masters of Science in Visual Studies (SMVisS) program.

The Visual Arts Program focused on the development of transdisciplinary strategies in artistic practice within the context of the advanced technological community of MIT. It was designed to foster relationships with programs in architecture, urban planning, media arts and sciences, mechanical engineering, and other disciplines. To that end, students accepted to the Visual Arts Program came from a variety of academic disciplines at MIT, and these heterogeneous backgrounds contribute to a body of work unlike that found in more traditional art departments.

Course work encouraged students to consider both the physical and the cultural context of their artworks/projects as central to their interpretation, with a strong emphasis on experimentation and interdisciplinary approaches to studio production in both traditional and new media. Students were given access to a range of facilities and equipment including a woodshop, metal shop, sewing room, casting room, photographic darkroom, Interform Editing Lab with digital video editing and digital imaging stations, sound studio, and graduate computer lab.

The Visual Arts Program faculty was composed of an internationally renowned group of practicing artists. Areas of research include: urban and architectural interventions, anti-monuments and new instruments of collective memory, design of body wear and nomadic devices, dissimulation in autobiography and self-presentation, institutional critique, the fluid boundaries of reality and fiction in documentary, performance and myth, history and memory in photography, the relationship of new digital media to performance, the exploration of site and relative social positions, and issues of ambulation and identity.

Ute Meta Bauer was appointed director of the Visual Arts Program in the summer of 2005. Under her stewardship, the undergraduate and graduate components grew in size, student labs expanded, and the program organized a highly-visible lecture series. The majority of the materials that were retained and are now included in this collection are from her tenure.