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Arts at MIT
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The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation approves 1 million USD grant to MIT to support the further integration of MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) into the research culture of the Institute
Third Mellon grant brings the Mellon Foundation’s total support for CAST to 4,000,000 USD through 2024
“CAST was established in 2012 with a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,” said Faculty Director Evan Ziporyn and Executive Director Leila Kinney,” and we are grateful for the Mellon’s ongoing support, particularly with this third consecutive grant that will provide an extraordinary 12 years of continuous Mellon funding. Thanks to their support, we will continue to expand our work facilitating and creating opportunities for collaboration among artists, engineers, scientists, and scholars in the humanities at MIT.”
MIT CAST’s role is to affirm, energize, and reinforce the inherent synergy between artistic and scientific modes of thought and action. It does so by collaborating with departments, labs, and centers across MIT in four primary areas of activity:
–To integrate the arts across the curriculum, CAST supports the development of new classes that reach across disciplines and majors.
–To enrich and encourage artistic collaborations, CAST looks for unexpected partnerships for visiting artists, and seeks to embed residencies in ongoing research and teaching at MIT.
–To encourage the experimental phase of artistic creation, CAST provides creativity seed funds and research grants for faculty, research, and instructional staff throughout the campus.
–To share this creative work and knowledge with the public, CAST produces symposia, workshops, exhibitions, publications, the MIT Sounding concert series, and the new “MIT Performing” theater series.
Since its inception, the Center has facilitated more than 140 projects and worked with more than 95 collaborators, whose proposals are selected by a faculty committee in response to a biannual call.
A joint initiative of the Associate Provost with responsibility for the arts, the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) and the Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS), the Center is committed to fostering a culture in which the arts, science, and technology thrive as interrelated, mutually informing modes of exploration, knowledge, and discovery.
More information about CAST
*Images above: (1) Isabelle Su performs Spider’s Canvas / Arachnodrone, a project created in collaboration with Tomás Saraceno, Evan Ziporyn, Christine Southworth, Markus Buehler, Ian Hattwick, and Isabelle Su that was premiered in Palais de Tokyo, Paris, performed at MIT’s building W97, and installed and presented in MIT.nano. Photo: Aurelie Cenno. (2) Aerocene, CAST Visiting Artist Tomás Saraceno’s collaborative project with MIT Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), takes flight in Killian Court. Photo: Katherine Higgins/MIT. (3) DJ Lychee performs at Dissolve Music @ MIT festival of music and sound organized by Professor Ian Condry, Jan St. Werner, and DJ Rekha. Photo: Caroline Alden.(4) Ayesha Jordan performs in a workshop presentation of Line by Line during the inaugural season of MIT Performing. Photo: Caroline Alden.
