April 21–22, 2017
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT Samberg Conference Center, Building E52
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139
Taking place at MIT on April 21 to 22, 2017, BEING MATERIAL will draw leading artists, scientists, engineers, and scholars from around the world to explore the future of programmable materials, 3D/4D printing, synthetic biology, and wearable technologies.
Artists and designers Trevor Paglen, Hussein Chalayan, Claire Pentecost, and Lucy McRae, alongside leading scientists, engineers, and international scholars, such as Manu Prakash, Professor of Bioengineering from Stanford University, George Barbastathis, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and Christina Agapakis. Nicholas Negroponte will present closing remarks entitled Been Digital.
Building on MIT Media Lab founder Nicholas Negroponte’s 1995 prediction that the rise of the digital would rapidly untether us from material constraints, the symposium will grapple with the persistence of materiality and showcase how the material and the digital have continued to converge and foster innovations in material systems and design.
These technological and engineering developments will be contextualized with input from artists and scholars from a range of humanities disciplines, advancing CAST’s mission to create opportunities for art, science, and technology to thrive as interrelated modes of exploration, knowledge, and discovery.
Each panel will be dedicated to a realm of digital and material intersections including the Programmable, Wearable, Livable, and Invisible, with a concluding concert—Audible.
Symposium registration is open to the public on the event website. A live stream will also be available.
