MIT Gets Even Brighter This Weekend

MIT’s 150th birthday, dozens of architects, design students, dreamers, and deep thinkers will transform the riverbanks of the Charles for a limited engagement this weekend. Keen observers may have already noticed installations in the university’s immediate vicinity — most mingling light and amorphous forms to create new experiences, visual or otherwise. An overview of these events and a handy map can be found here. It’s all part of FAST Light (Festival of Arts, Science, and Technology), headed up by MIT provocateur Tod Machover, who has devoted his career to exploring music through experimental instrumentation. The curator of the event is one of architecture’s most exciting young minds — Meejin Yoon. She has steadfastly risen to the top of the academic design heap by pushing architecture into new realms (specifically, outside and into the landscape). For FAST, Yoon has engaged several firms that would’ve been household names, if they’d settled in an edgier part of the world. Fortunately, they’re stuck here, and occasionally struck their stuff for lay people.

The weekend of kinetic illumination will begin Friday night with the launch of Otto Piene’s SKY Event when large-scale, brightly lit stars fly over MIT’s Killian Court. (Those anticipating the rapture, please take note.) Meanwhile, the Charles River and the Mass Ave Bridge will be illuminated with projects by MIT faculty Nader Tehrani, Gediminas Urbonas and Meejin Yoon, and postdoc Susanne Seitinger.

During the day, visitors will be able to take a self-guided tour of the 20+ installations by faculty and students that will transform the way people experience the campus.