ACT Spring 2020 Lecture Series: The Allegorical Resonance of Alchemical Affect

ACT Spring 2020 Lecture Series: The Allegorical Resonance of Alchemical Affect

Each speaker might be seen as engaging with these terms in different ways.

Allegory as allowing interpretations that have the possibility of giving form to the immaterial while revealing hidden meanings.

Alchemy as a forerunner of chemistry, encompassing the recognition that serendipity as a chance operation can lead to unforeseen outcomes.

Affect as a verb generative of an experience, feeling, or emotion often in relation to compassion and empathy.

Resonance as the quality of being resonant, which creates a lasting effect and might be productive of transformation.

Monday, February 10: Jill Magid
4:30pm and 8pm: Film screenings of Jill Magid’s The Proposal
6pm: Conversation between Jill Magid, Ana Miljaki, and Timothy Hyde, moderated by Caroline A. Jones

Jill Magid (SMVisS ‘00) is an artist, writer and filmmaker. Solo exhibitions include Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; San Francisco Art Institute; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Berkeley Museum of Art, California; Tate Liverpool; and the Security and Intelligence Agency of the Netherlands. She has participated in Manifesta, the Liverpool, Bucharest, Singapore, Incheon, Gothenburg, Oslo and Performa Biennials. Magid is the recipient of the 2017 Calder Prize.

Monday, March 2: Stephen Prina
6pm: Lecture
Following the lecture, Renée Green and David Joselit will join Stephen Prina for a discussion

Stephen Prina is an American artist, musician, and composer, born in 1954 in Galesburg, Illinois. He currently splits his time between Los Angeles, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts where he is a professor at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies (VES) at Harvard University. Prina received his BFA from the Northern Illinois University and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Prina works in a variety of media including musical performances. Each piece is related in some way and develops in a series of long-term projects that he frequently rearranges and re-presents in different exhibition and associative contexts.

Monday, May 4: Cesare Pietroiusti
6pm: Lecture
Following the lecture, Jesal Kapadia will join Cesare Pietroiusti for a discussion

Cesare Pietroiusti started his career in Psychiatry in 1979. He focused his early work as an artist on social psychology in relation to art. His work progressed into social projects that examined problematic and paradoxical situations that are hidden in common relationships and in ordinary acts—thoughts that come to mind without a reason, small worries, quasi-obsessions that are usually considered too insignificant to become a matter of discussion, or of self-representation. He teaches at the Laboratorio delle Tecniche e delle Espressioni Artistiche, IUAV University, Venice.

ACT’s Lecture Series draws together artists, scholars, and other cultural practitioners from different disciplines to discuss artistic methodologies and forms of inquiry at the intersection of art, architecture, science, and technology. Each spring and fall semester brings a different thematic focus and the format for each event shifts depending on the visitor(s) and the nature of their presentations and performances.

ACT’s Spring 2020 Lecture Series is conceived by Judith Barry, ACT Director, and made possible with the generous support of our partners and collaborators: The Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT), MIT School of Architecture and Planning, and MIT Department of Architecture.

Lectures begin at 6pm. Please see our calendar for additional information on other ACT events.

Contact: T +1 617 253 5229 / act@mit.edu