MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000



ASSOCIATE PROVOST FOR THE ARTS

The focus of the Office of the Associate Provost for the Arts during 1999—2000 has been on the further development and planning for new resources for the arts, greater national engagement in arts initiatives and a new focus on MIT’s relationship to K-12 education; the development and sustenance of the expanding arts community.

RESOURCES AND PROGRAMS

The prospect for much-needed educational facilities for Music and Theater Arts took two major steps forward. Arrangements to relocate the faculty and administrative offices from 14N to Buildings 4 and 10 became final. Planning moved forward for the development of a Laboratory for the Performing Arts on the lower level of E15.

In response to a matching grant from Council for the Arts member, Ron Cordover, the MIT Museum developed designs for a new façade for Building N51 and received permission to move the Museum store to street level with an entrance on Massachusetts Avenue.

Fiscal year 2000 also saw the arrival of Jane Farver, the new director for the List Visual Arts Center. Over the year Ms. Farver brought in Bill Arning, the new curator; David Freilach, the new administrative officer and John Rexine Jr., the new fine arts registrar.

Through the work of consultant Patricia Fuller and Jane Farver, the MIT Percent for the Arts policy became clarified and operative, with Ms. Farver sitting as a member of the Campus Planning Steering Committee. Artists Matthew Ritchie and Dan Graham were engaged to create pieces for the new Athletic Center and the new undergraduate dormitory.

The long awaited signage for the List Visual Arts Center went up on Ames Street. In addition, banners recognizing MIT arts programs were hung on the Medical Center Plaza.

NATIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND K—12

The Associate Provost for the Arts participated in a number of initiatives involving K—12 education. In cooperation with Paul Parravano, co-director of the Office of Government and Community Relations, the Associate Provost began planning for the MIT chapter of Teachers as Scholars (TAS), an ongoing series of seminars from all five schools for K—12 teachers. The Associate Provost was also invited to be on the TAS Board of Advisors.

The Associate Provost and Paul Parravano hosted the regional meeting of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation’s Schools and Scholars Program at MIT in January 2000. The Associate Provost also joined Mr. Parravano and Ron Latanision at the National Schools and Scholars Conference in Washington, DC later that spring.

The MIT Museum hosted the first of a series of dinners including representatives of all the MIT K—12 programs in order to begin to develop a coordinated effort.

In addition, the Harvard School of Education Arts Program invited the Associate Provost to join the co-directors of the recently funded project for profiling local schools with active arts programs.

The MIT Museum and the List Visual Arts Center initiated vigorous outreach programs, particularly in relation to K—12.

The Associate Provost served his first year as the MIT representative on the Board of Trustees of the MFA.

In collaboration with the Business Committee for the Arts, the Associate Provost and Neal Hartman of the Sloan School of Management continued planning sessions for Creative Visions, a series of national think tanks exploring the intersection of business, education and the arts.

Florida International University invited the Associate Provost to serve as consultant to its programs in the arts.

THE ARTS COMMUNITY

At the request of the Rosalind Williams, Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education, the Associate Provost served as an active member of the Founders Group for the new undergraduate dormitory.

At the request of Philip Khoury, Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS), the Associate Provost joined the Committee on Women’s Issues in SHSS.

Fiscal year 2000 also saw the renaming of SHSS to the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.

Assistant Professor of Theater, Thomas DeFrantz, hosted the first annual Conference on Black Performance. He also collaborated with Associate Professor of Theater Brenda Cotto-Escalera, on the performance piece, Monk’s Moods. Associate Professor Janet Sonenberg officially assumed the position of Head of Theater Arts.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND HONORS

Institute Professor John Harbison’s opera, The Great Gatsby, opened at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in January of 2000.

Professor Anita Desai’s new novel, Feasting, Fasting, was a major publishing event of the year.

Jane Farver was one of the five curators of this year’s Whitney Biennial.

Alan Brody’s play, Matchpoint, was chosen as one of five finalists for the Summer Futurefest in Dayton, Ohio.

The MIT Symphony, under the baton of Assistant Professor Dante Anzolini, toured Europe in the spring of 2000, performing in Brno, Prague, Budapest and Vienna.

Alan Brody

LIST VISUAL ARTS CENTER

The MIT List Visual Arts Center’s (LVAC) mission is to present the most challenging, forward-thinking, and lasting expressions of modern and contemporary art to the MIT community and general public in order to broaden the scope and depth of cultural experiences available on campus. The LVAC’s mission also is to reflect and support the diversity of the MIT community through the presentation of diverse cultural expressions. This is accomplished through four avenues: changing exhibitions of contemporary art in all media by the most advanced visual artists working today that take place in the LVAC galleries (E15); the Permanent Collection of art (comprising large outdoor sculptures, artworks sited in offices and departments throughout campus, as well as art commissioned under MIT's Percent-for-Art policy which allocates funds from new building construction or renovation for art; the Student Loan Art Program, a collection of fine art prints, photos and other multiples, maintained solely for loan to MIT students during the course of the academic year; and interpretive programs to offer the MIT community and the public various perspectives about LVAC changing exhibitions and MIT's art collections.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

EXHIBITIONS

Student Loan Art Exhibition (LVAC galleries, September 8—September 28, 1999). Annual exhibition of 350 works comprising Student Loan Art Collection. MIT Students may view displayed works, and then enter a lottery to be awarded the work of their choice on loan for the academic year and hang in their dormitory, apartment or office.

A Unique American Vision: Paintings by Gregory Gillespie (Hayden and Bakalar Galleries, October 9, 1999— January 2, 2000, curator Donald Keyes and guest curator Carl Belz). A retrospective of works by a well-known Massachusetts figurative painter. Organized by the Georgia Museum of Art.

María Magdalena Campos Pons (Reference Gallery, October 9, 1999—January 2, 2000, curator: Jennifer Riddell). Multi-media exhibition by Boston artist Campos Pons, featuring glass objects made at the Urban Glass Workshop in New York and video projections. Catalogue with essays by Riddell and Michael Harris.

Jane and Louise Wilson: Stasi City and Crawl Space. (Hayden Gallery, January 2—April 9, 2000, guest curator: Lelia Amalfitano.) Video installations by artist twins nominated for the Tate Museum in London’s 1999 Turner Prize.

Lilla LoCurto and Bill Outcault: selfportrait.map. (Reference Gallery, January 28—April 9, 2000, curator: Helaine Posner.) Digital photographs based on full body scans manipulated through a mapping software program by Brooklyn-based artist pair. Catalogue published in collaboration with Lyman Allyn Museum, featuring essays by Posner and David Gelertner. Exhibition is travelling to: Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, FL; Hatton Gallery, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO; California State University, Long Beach, CA; Lyman Allyn Museum of Art at Connecticut College, New London, CT; Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN; Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, WA.

Knowmad–Map: Motion+Action=Place (Bakalar Gallery, February 3—April 9, 2000, curator Jane Farver). Installation featuring video game and projections based on "mappings" in rugs by nomadic cultures in the Middle East and Central Asia. Created by a confederacy led by artist Mel Chin, and including Rocco Basile, Emile Busse, Tom Hambleton, Brett Hawkins, Andrew Lunstad, Chris Parrish-Taylor, Osla Thomason Kuster. Originally created for the Weisman Museum in Minneapolis.

Film and Video from the 2000 Whitney Biennial (Bartos Theater, April 21—23, 2000) Three-day festival of screening of works that were concurrently on view at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York.

Experiments in the Everyday: Allan Kaprow and Robert Watts: Events, Objects, Documents.

(Hayden and Bakalar Galleries, April 27—July 2, 2000; curators: Dr. Benjamin Buchloh and Dr. Judith Rodenback, organized by Columbia University). Exhibition of works by Watts and Kaprow who were both students of Meyer Shapiro, and who both taught at Rutgers University. Includes a survey of works by Fluxus participant Watts and early "Happenings" by Kaprow.

Luca Buvoli–Flying: Practical Training for Beginners (Reference Gallery, April 27—July 2, 2000, curator: Jane Farver.) Installation featuring the premiere showing of an animated and live-action film by New York based artist Buvoli. Also featured drawings and sculptures used to make the film, and an artist’s book published in cooperation with Edizione Corraini in Italy. Exhibition travels to Austin Museum of Fine Arts in December 2000.

INTERPRETIVE PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

LVAC curatorial staff led 10 private gallery tours during the course of the exhibition year for MIT and 60 for groups including 12 visits from the Museum School, seven from Mass Art, five from RISD, four from the Art Institute of Boston, four from UMass, Boston, two from the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and others for groups ranging from the Pasadena Friends of Contemporary Art to the Alexander Dreyfuss School of Arts in West Palm Beach, FL. Other groups came from New York, Connecticut, and various Massachusetts locations.

Exhibition artist Gregory Gillespie and curator Carl Belz engaged in public dialogue in the gallery about Gillespie’s retrospective exhibition.

Artist María Magdalena Campos Pons delivered a well-attended gallery talk on the occasion of her LVAC exhibition.

Artists LoCurto and Outcault and curator Helaine Posner held a public conversation in Bartos Theater in conjunction with the artists’ exhibition.

Artists Jane and Louise Wilson delivered a public lecture on their work in Rm 10-250. This was co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Design at Harvard.

Artist Mel Chin delivered a public lecture on his work in Rm 10-250.

Artist Luca Buvoli delivered a public lecture on his work in the Medical Building auditorium.

Staff conducted an IAP seminar, "Conceiving and Designing a Contemporary Art Exhibition" for the fourth year running, attracting a group of 12 MIT and Wellesley participants.

COLLECTIONS

There were four gifts of art to the permanent collection including works by Terry Winters, George Condo, Helen Frankenthaler, and Rikrit Tirivanija. Donors included Vera G. List, Donald and Jeanne Stanton and Kim Sooja.

The Student Loan Art Program attracted 916 MIT students to the LVAC gallery over the 17-day period of the exhibition of artworks. A total of 600 students submitted entries to the lottery to borrow artwork and approximately 300 works were disbursed.

FUTURE GOALS

Continue to increase audience both from MIT campus and from Boston area.

Hire a part-time educator and increase cross-disciplinary use of LVAC’s exhibitions, programs, and facilities.

Undertake a conservation survey of permanent collection sculpture on campus through an Institute of Museum and Library Services Conservation Assessment Program grant received by LVAC.

Label artworks across campus.

Initiate first collaboration with Cambridge Public Schools. In fall of 2000, LVAC will offer a yearlong after-school program for students at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School.

STAFF NEWS

Jane Farver joined the LVAC staff as director in July 1999. Patricia Fuller joined the LVAC staff as consultant for the percent-for-art program. David Freilach joined the LVAC staff as administrative/development officer in September 1999. Magdalena Fernandez, returned to her position as gallery attendant in September 1999. Kimberly Nyce, administrative assistant, left the staff in September 1999. Jill Aszling left the LVAC staff in March 2000. John Rexine joined the LVAC staff as registrar in April 2000. Bill Arning joined the LVAC staff in April 2000. Jon Roll left the LVAC staff in June 2000.

ADVISORY BOARD CHANGES

Blake Brasher joined the LVAC Advisory Board Committee as a student representative. Michael Coden, Jerry Friedman, Jenny Frutchy, Marian Merril, and A.G. Rosen joined the LVAC Advisory Board Committee. Peter Temin has left the LVAC Advisory Board Committee for one year and will re-join the committee in 2001. Martin Rosen left the LVAC Advisory Board Committee.

More information can be found about the MIT List Visual Arts Center at http://web.mit.edu/lvac/www/.

Jane Farver

MIT MUSEUM

The MIT Museum exists to document, interpret and communicate to a diverse audience, the activities and achievements of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the worldwide impact of its innovation, particularly in the fields of science and technology; and to enhance the spirit of community inside the Institute through the promotion of dialogue both at MIT and between the Institute and the wider world.

The major theme for the Museum’s activities this year has been planning:

The Museum served 37,902 visitors this year, an increase of 15% over last year's total admission figures. This increase is extremely encouraging as it shows that even without a major new exhibition the Museum has maintained the gains of last year (31%) and continued to attract more visitors.

COLLECTIONS

Two new members joined the Collections Committee this year: Professor Nicholas Patrikalakis from Ocean Engineering (OE) and Dr. Jack Coleman, visiting scientist at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Professor Doug Carmichael resigned at the end of his three-year term. The Committee met five times and considered nineteen acquisitions of which twelve were accepted into the permanent collection. The Museum began a major deaccessioning program with the transfer of the Arnott model railroad to Wenham Museum. Large numbers of excess copies of The Tech, Technique and Technology Review have been passed onto other MIT departments, including The Tech offices, MIT Libraries and Black Alumni/ae of MIT (BAMIT). Also publications were offered to alumni/ae over Tech weekend in early June and many alumni/ae were delighted to obtain a copy of their yearbook. Much of the Committee’s time was taken up with these and other deaccessioning and disposition decisions.

The Provost allocated funds to support the enhancement of collections storage on the second and basement floors as part of our preparation for our American Association of Museums (AAM) reaccredidation visit in 2001. All but one of our storerooms in the Metropolitan Warehouse have now been emptied and the material stored onsite. There were thirteen loans in total from the collections including several to institutions outside the US.

Architecture and Design Collections

Use of the Architecture and Design Collections has increased again this year, with 101 telephone inquiries, 98 email and written requests, and 23 researchers using the Collections on site. An important acquisition was three architectural models from Professor Maurice Smith. Drawings from The Architects Collaborative collection were loaned to the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA and the Museum Folkwang in Germany.

The highlight of the year was the opening of the exhibition Dreams in Brick and Mortar: Alvar Aalto, MIT and the Design of Baker House, from September 30 to January 28 in the Museum's Compton Gallery. This exhibition of drawings, photographs, documents and furniture examined not only the construction of Baker House dormitory but also the important moment in MIT’s history when it was created. Support for the exhibition came from the Council for the Arts at MIT, Harry Ellenzweig of Ellenzweig Associates, Harvey Steinberg ’54 and Perry Dean Rogers and partners. The related educational programming served over 350 people.

For the launch of MIT's Capital Campaign, we organized a series of panels outlining the development (from architect selection and program development, through fundraising) of MIT's Stata Center. Entitled Frank

O. Gehry and the Design of MIT's Stata Center, the exhibition was also on view at the Wolk Gallery and at Kresge Auditorium for Tech Weekend.

Two grants were obtained for cataloging the collections this year. The Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts is supporting initial cataloging of The Architects Collaborative collection and we received an Institute of Museum and Library Services Conservation Project grant for the collections of Marjorie Pierce '22 and Professor Richard Filipowski.

Hart Nautical Collections

Activity in the Hart collections this year was comparable to previous years. Inquiry levels remained high with about 1,000 inquiries received via phone, fax, email and mail. These inquiries generated over $12K in total sales from the Hart Nautical Collections ($6K in plan and photo sales, $3K in fees and royalties and $3K in wholesale sales of guides to the Herreshoff and Davis-Hand collections).

The George Owen 1894 Collection project was completed last August. Funding is being sought to publish a guide to this collection. The Reliance model project was completed in October with the unveiling of the new model by the donors, Mr. and Mrs. John Dema, at a reception at the Hart Nautical Gallery. The model of this 1903 Herreshoff America’s Cup winner was commissioned by the Demas for Hart in 1995, and is valued at $65K.

A new IAP boat building program was organized by the Hart in January. A 12-foot wooden sailboat designed by MIT alumnus Joel White ’54, was built in the Department of Architecture’s woodshop in the first two weeks of IAP 2000. Students and staff worked together to build the boat under supervision of a professional boat builder. The boat is now part of the MIT Nautical Association’s fleet and may be sailed by any member. The project was funded by the Deans of Architecture and Engineering, Department of Ocean Engineering, the Edgerton Center, John Lednicky ’44, the MIT Museum and the IAP office.

At the end of 1999 John Lednicky ’44 again made a gift to benefit the Hart Nautical Collections. The Lednicky fund was used to help fund a case for the Reliance model, the IAP class mentioned above and to contribute to printing the guide to the George Owen Collection. Other contributors to printing the Owen guide are as follows: David Wadleigh ’38, Halsey Herreshoff ’60, Richard Berry ’32, John Worton ’48, Evan Polley and Chris Morrison.

MIT students under Professor Patrikalakis (Ocean Engineering) used plans from Hart for a group design project in the Spring 2000 semester.

Holography Collections

In February we hired Steve Maloney, a graduate from Simmons College, as a part-time assistant to complete a documentation project funded by the Shearwater Foundation, the Museum and MIT President Chuck Vest. Steve has a graduate degree in Archives Management, including courses in Photographic Archives and Database Management. Prior to working at the Museum he spent nine months working for WGBH-TV, Boston, cataloging and preserving video recordings and associated materials, and several months working at the Rhode Island School of Design’s photographic archives. To date the collection database has been updated and expanded and 30% of the holograms are inventoried and fully cataloged. All catalog data has been verified. In addition the archives have been organized, with finding aids ready to be placed on the Museum’s web site. This project is an essential prelude to further development of this collection.

There were two loans from the collection to galleries in Copenhagen and Finland.

Memorabilia And Photograph Collections

The Historical Photograph collection continued to receive heavy use, with over 300 inquiries and 150 visitors from within and without MIT. Over 100 requests for photographic material were fulfilled. Some notable MIT projects included material for the Millennium Ball, the Museum and Archives new timeline in Building 10, alumni seeking material for reunions and the Alumni Association's use of images for a multi-media presentation at the Great Court Gala on Tech Day. Inquiries came from organizations as diverse as PBS, Boeing, the Sierra Club and the Chemical Heritage Foundation. We continued to digitize images, working with MIT Video Productions, on an as-needed basis.

Science And Technology Collections

In this first year that these collections have had a dedicated curator much was accomplished. Over 100 inquiries were answered about artifacts and related archival materials, including assistance with two television documentary programs for the History Channel and WGBH’s The American Experience and photographers and authors from National Geographic. The curator also assisted the Lincoln Laboratory and the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics with their special exhibitions, giving advice on planning, design and the selection of artifacts.

There were several accessions this year, most notably a group of historical computing artifacts from the Compaq Computer Corporation. These 65 items comprised three sets of artifacts representing the Whirlwind, SAGE and LINC projects at MIT. They were originally part of the DEC corporate collections. The Museum had, before this acquisition, extremely limited material from these research programs and these pieces are extremely important additions to our collections. After a six-week preservation project, the Memory Test Computer from the Whirlwind program was put on display in the reception area of the Museum.

Approximately 50 MIT students used the collections for their work, including in-museum seminars for three undergraduate classes and one freshman seminar. The curator also lectured to another Science, Technology and Society (STS) class of 50 students. Most notably two UROP projects were done on the collections; one student worked on the Whirlwind artifacts and the second is carrying out research in anticipation of "An MIT Education" (working title) exhibition. Research and planning has now begun for this exhibition, which will focus on the MIT educational experience since the founding of the Institute.

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH

The Museum’s monthly family program series, Family Adventures in Science and Technology (F.A.S.T.), and the Friday After Thanksgiving (F.A.T.) Science Chain Reaction with Arthur Ganson continued to attract substantial media attention and record numbers of enthusiastic visitors to the Museum during the fall and winter months. This year, hands-on F.A.S.T. programs were co-developed and generously staffed with students, faculty, and researchers from Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, The Edgerton Center, and Haystack Observatory. Together F.A.S.T. and F.A.T. programs provided high-quality, MIT-centered science and technology experiences to over 4,000 members of the visiting public, preschool to adult, drawn from throughout the greater New England region.

The Museum’s popular school and group programs served over 3,500 students throughout the state and greater New England. Many MIT students continued to help lead these programs, contributing greatly to their success. The Museum's school and group programs have fostered an increase in the diversity of the museum's audience by successfully extending its reach into communities traditionally underserved by museums. These include those from rural areas, special needs youth and adults, and urban minority youth (which now make up over 40% of our group audiences).

The Museum expanded partnerships with school districts and individual schools in Cambridge, Somerville, and Greater Boston. For example, collaborating with Cambridge Public Schools, the MIT Museum co-coordinated a Massachusetts Department of Education Content Institute for public school teachers, The Design Process: Light, Color, and Energy, from June 1999 to May 2000. In January, the Museum piloted a Middle School physics program, Gears and Gizmos, again in partnership with Cambridge Public Schools, using the Museum’s Gestural Engineering exhibit and staffed with MIT student IAP Fellows. In April we began a new school partnership with the Haggerty Elementary School in Cambridge, following the model of our successful partnership with the West Somerville Neighborhood School.

EXHIBITIONS

The Museum has embarked on a three-year plan to revise, refurbish and expand its exhibition offerings in support of the Museum's new mission and focus on MIT endeavor and discovery. In order to better understand and serve our audience, we have also developed and begun implementation of a long-term plan to integrate audience research and evaluation into planning of exhibitions. Surveys and visitor interviews are being used to help improve visitor satisfaction with exhibitions and attract new and larger audiences. The Exhibitions and Public Programs Committee of the Board met twice to consider exhibition proposals.

Main Facility

In October 1999, working with researchers and students from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Laboratory at MIT, the Museum began planning for a major new exhibition and conducted visitor evaluation to help in this planning process. Robots and Beyond: Exploring Artificial Intelligence at MIT, due to open in late October 2000, will challenge Museum visitors to exercise their minds and imaginations as they explore innovations and cutting edge technologies developed and inspired by research from the AI Lab.

In April 2000, the Museum began preliminary planning for a new exhibition exploring the unique nature of the MIT educational experience, due to open Tech Day 2001.

Compton Gallery

The Museum installed three exhibitions in Compton Gallery: On the Edge of the Future: Mid-Century Convocation at MIT; Dreams in Brick and Mortar: MIT, Alvar Aalto, and the Design of Baker House; and Observing the Observers: Wenyon and Gamble. The latter was organized in collaboration with the Artists-in-Residence Program. The Museum also collaborated with the Institute Archives to produce a new timeline for the corridor cases outside the Compton Gallery — bringing the information up to the beginning of 2000.

Traveling Exhibitions

Two traveling exhibitions currently offered by the Museum continue to tour museums throughout the US: Unfolding Light: The Evolution of Ten Holographers and Seeing the Unseen: Photographs by Harold Edgerton. The Museum, in partnership with theoretical physicist, Eric Heller, also received National Science Foundation (NSF) grant funding to plan a new traveling exhibition, Approaching Chaos, that will debut at Compton Gallery in February 2001.

DEVELOPMENT AND MUSEUM SHOP

The Museum’s fundraising efforts focused on the Façade Initiative, a major new capital project, and recurring needs in the areas of collections management and access, educational programs and exhibitions. The Façade campaign, which included a major gifts solicitation effort as well as a direct mail appeal, raised $472,165 from 50 donors. We also secured grants from the Graham Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to process and rehouse three significant collections within the Architectural Collections and from the Ralph L. Stephens Trust to benefit our Holography Collection and Program. The T. Backer Fund and the Cambridge Public Schools (via the MA Department of Education) provided grants for family education programs and a professional development Content Institute for Massachusetts teachers. A number of individuals made gifts to support various needs and programs, notably Mrs. J. Howard Beck, for unrestricted support; John A. Lednicky ’44 (OE), for the Hart Nautical Collections; and Martin E. Zimmerman ’59 (Electrical Engineering), for the Architectural Collections. A total of $77,755 was raised from 31 donors, including 25 individuals, one foundation, two corporations, and three public sector funders. The Development Committee of the Advisory Board held four meetings and worked steadily to meet the fundraising goal for the Façade Initiative.

The Museum Shop operations were completely reorganized this year. The Museum is working with I/S services as the pilot site for MIT’s development of an e-commerce system and we expect significant sales via this route over the next year. The Museum commissioned a report by museum store consultants MarketPlace Associates to project revenue for a new store on the first floor of the building, as well as an assessment of current retail operations. The report concluded that a store on the first floor should be very successful, and we are moving ahead to open our new ground level store in fiscal year 2001.

PERSONNEL

Several new members of staff joined the Museum this year. Jenny O’Neill became the collections assistant for the Hart Nautical collections and photographic collections at the beginning of the fiscal year. Debbie Douglas and Bob Peters began work at the beginning of August as Curator of Science and Technology and Commercial Services Manager respectively. The new Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, Janis Sacco, started in the middle of August. Finally Ken Murphy arrived as Assistant Manager for Commercial Services in late September. Kimberly Alexander Shilland left at the end of June for a senior curatorial position at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.

FUTURE PLANS

The Museum’s five year strategic plan defines ten strategic objectives for the Museum: to increase participation of the MIT community in the Museum’s activities; to improve our services to visitors; to develop new exhibitions and educational programs that effectively communicate the breadth and diversity of MIT activity; to focus on collection development and refinement; to improve documentation and preservation of collections; to collaborate with others to interpret and communicate the Institute’s history; to develop the Museum’s online presence; to expand and extend the reach of Museum exhibitions and educational programs to new and larger audiences; to diversify the base of the support for the Museum; and to develop the Museum’s operating infrastructure to meet the needs generated by growth. The accompanying three-year implementation plan details the following key objectives for fiscal year 2001:

More information about the MIT Museum can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/museum/.

Jane Pickering

MUSEUM LOAN NETWORK PROGRAM

The Museum Loan Network (MLN)–the first comprehensive national collection-sharing program–stimulates, facilitates, and funds long-term loans of objects of cultural heritage among US institutions to enhance museums’ "permanent" installations. Established in 1995, the MLN is funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts and is administered by MIT’s Office of the Arts. The MLN concurrently addresses two pressing issues facing the national museum community. Currently, hundreds of thousands of objects of cultural heritage sit in museum storage facilities around the country, most never put on display and many not adequately catalogued. At the same time, hundreds of museums are restricted in the range and quality of permanent exhibits they can mount because of the limitations of their own holdings. By fostering collection-sharing between museums, the MLN brings to light our nation’s enormous hidden heritage in a meaningful way.

The program continues to expand its emphasis on network building, both through human and technological resources. In the Fall of 1999, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts renewed funding for the MLN for a second three-year period. Each foundation awarded $1,897,000 for a combined gift of $3,794,000. Not only will this support allow the MLN to continue its successful program involving the loan of objects to and from art museums, it also adds new momentum to the MLN’s initiative to include a range of objects of cultural heritage previously outside its domain. To reflect these new disciplines, new members have been added to the MLN Advisory Committee, as well as to the curatorial ambassadors. The curatorial ambassadors, appointed in the fall of 1997, continue to help promote the program, assist applicants in locating potential lending partners and provide curatorial advice to MLN. The curatorial ambassadors’ work has already resulted in several grant applications and heightened awareness of MLN in the curatorial community. Development continued on the MLN on-line directory, a practical means of identifying objects of cultural heritage available for long-term loan to eligible museums throughout the US, which now contains over 4,000 objects from 33 institutions. The MLN continues to develop virtual exhibitions on its homepage. Featuring projects made possible by MLN implementation grants and designed in conjunction with MIT’s Educational Media Creation Center (EMCC), these virtual tours not only provide visual models for museums to understand how to creatively utilize MLN, but also stimulate public interest in the arts and provide greater access to museums’ hidden permanent collections. There are now seven virtual exhibitions on the MLN homepage featuring installations from the Mobile Museum of Art, Williams College Museum of Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Mint Museum of Art, Harn Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and University of Kentucky Art Museum.

The MLN continues to work with communications consultant Resnicow/Schroeder who was hired in the Fall of 1998 to lead an aggressive press initiative. The MLN has been very pleased with the long term results of the initiative so far. NBC Weekend Nightly News produced a focus segment on the MLN which aired on April 8, 2000. In addition articles on the MLN have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Art Newspaper, ARTNews, USA Today, Arts and Antiques, The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Cybertimes. An Associated Press(AP) story that was dispatched nationally and internationally resulted in articles in over 40 newspapers including The Boston Globe, The Albany Herald and the Indianapolis Star. In October 1999, the third MLN newsletter, Museum Loan Network News 1998—1999 was printed in a run of 5,000 copies and distributed at museum conferences and by mail. This 20-page newsletter features testimonial stories by grantees, a listing and map featuring 1998—1999 grant winners and their partner institutions, and an article by one of the curatorial ambassadors concerning the permanent collection. This year the MLN has started a series of postcards of selected objects from the MLN Directory. Since February 2000, two postcards were distributed to a list of 2,000 museum professionals as well as at museum conferences. The first postcard featured a Franklin sedan from the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village and the second one a Chagall painting from The Saint Louis Art Museum The intent of the postcards is to promote the MLN Directory and encourage museums to check it periodically for new additions. The MLN Director and/or Program Associates lectured about the program and related museum issues at the following annual meetings: the American Association of Museums Meeting, Baltimore; the College Art Association (CAA), New York; the combined Association of State and Local History and Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums conference, Baltimore; the New England Museum Association meeting, Worcester; the Midwest Museums Conference, Indianapolis; the Mountain Plains Museum Association meeting, Santa Fe; the Southeast Museum Association meeting, Birmingham; and the PA Federation of Museums & Historical Association meeting , State College. The MLN was also represented by a booth at most of the above mentioned conferences.

The MLN awards two types of grants to eligible nonprofit institutions in the US: planning grants and implementation grants. At the February 2000 Advisory Committee meeting held in Miami and the June 2000 meeting held at MIT, 37 grants totaling $566,840 were recommended for approval by MIT for funding to museums throughout the country. These awards will facilitate the sharing of diverse types of objects such as textiles, decorative arts, furniture, machinery, photographs, sculptures and paintings among museums of differing disciplines ranging from historical societies to natural history museums to culturally-specific institutions to art museums. Survey grants were awarded to such prestigious institutions as the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, The Field Museum, and the USC Fisher Gallery. Travel grants were awarded to the Minnesota Museum of American Art, the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe Historic Preservation Program and the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, among others. Implementation grants were awarded to such diverse institutions as the Alaska State Museum, the Turtle Bay Museums and Arboretum on the River, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

In April 2000, the MLN hosted its first in a series, of "think tanks" exploring policy issues relating to museum concerns. The first, held in Lexington, Kentucky, entitled " Museums as Catalysts for Inter-disciplinary Collaboration," brought together an auspicious group of professionals from diverse disciplines, including dancers, art historians, actors, playwrights, historians, science writers, educators, librarians, public television producers and funders. Presently the MLN is planning "think tank 2" which will take place at MIT in the fall of 2000 and coincide with the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the School of Humanities and Social Science.

Mark Wright, formerly assistant curator and researcher at the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for African American History and Culture and the Anacostia Museum, was hired in September 1999 as MLN’s second program associate.

Julie Barrett, administrative assistant, resigned in June 2000.

More information about the MLN can be found on the World Wide Web at http://loanet.mit.edu/.

Lori Gross

OFFICE OF THE ARTS

In the eleventh year of the Office of the Arts, Arts Communication continued to maintain and increase awareness of the arts at MIT both within and outside of the Institute by publishing and distributing up-to-date information on MIT arts events and exhibitions; actively promoting arts-related activities, programs and people at MIT; and working with the Admissions Office to inform prospective students about the arts at MIT. Significant developments included the expansion of the presence of the arts during Campus Preview Weekend; and the research, writing, design and conceptual development of a new arts brochure.

INTERNAL (MIT)

Director of Arts Communication Mary Haller worked with writer Neal Kane, designer Kathy Forsythe and MIT’s Publishing Services Bureau on the development of a new MIT arts brochure, aimed at student recruitment but usable as well for fundraising and general public relations purposes. Focus groups were held with current MIT students to help determine content and tone. Seven students and four faculty members were photographed and interviewed for the profiles that make up the main content of the piece.

The LED sign in Building 16 was linked up to the Office of the Arts with help from staff in Physical Plant, Information Systems and Telecommunications. Announcements were written and programmed by Administrative Staff Assistant Lynn Heinemann and student assistant Tina Lin.

Haller and David Freilach of the List Visual Arts Center presented a one-session class during MIT’s Independent Activities Period entitled, "Getting the Word Out: Publicizing Your MIT Arts Programs and Events."

Haller worked with staff from the Admissions Office and selected arts faculty and staff to enhance the presence of the arts for Campus Preview Weekend 2000 (April 6-9). In addition to the many performances and exhibitions taking place at MIT that weekend, special arts-related activities included the Lobby 7 Arts Stage, a "Music at MIT" open forum, a joint open house/dessert circuit between the MIT Museum and List Visual Arts Center, gallery tours at the List Center, an architecture lecture by Associate Professor Wellington "Duke" Reiter, numerous open courses in Music and Theater Arts, and open rehearsals by the MIT Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Chamber Chorus. The Lobby 7 "Arts Stage" was the site of informal performances by numerous music, theater and dance groups.

Heinemann worked with the staff of Information Systems during the development and testing of MIT’s new official electronic events calendar–joining the team for consultations on policy, structure and design, while overseeing and maintaining arts listings.

Heinemann maintained and publicized the current World Wide Web site for the arts at MIT, updating calendar listings, publishing each week’s Tech Talk arts stories and creating new links as required.

Arts Communication continued to oversee ArtsNet, which consists of about 90 campus arts representatives, the "Arts at MIT" bulletin board in Lobby Seven and the weekly "Arts Hotline" (253-ARTS).

Haller represented the arts as a member of the Communications Operations Group (COG) and Information Group.

STUDENT RECRUITMENT AND COMMUNICATION

For the fifth year, MIT’s admission application included tear-out postcards for prospective students to use to request information on the arts at MIT and indicate specific arts interests. Postcards and email responses were received from 1,819 individuals and a copy of the Student’s Guide to the Arts and a "freebie" flyer were sent to each with a letter from Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody. Students who were eventually admitted and who had indicated interests in music and in theater were sent congratulatory letters from Professor John Harbison and Associate Professor Janet Sonenberg giving specific information on opportunities in those areas at MIT.

TECH TALK COVERAGE

For the 11th year, Arts Communication provided text and images for the weekly Arts Page in Tech Talk. Material for 21 feature Arts Pages and eight Month-at-a-Glance Arts Pages were compiled and written by Heinemann, edited by Haller. Haller attended weekly News Office meetings and both she and Heinemann continued to work closely with its staff. Arts Page stories were made available on-line through the World Wide Web. Copies of the Month-at-a-Glance Arts Page (including two two-pagers) were mailed monthly to 471 individuals at their request.

Twenty-four feature arts-related stories and nine arts-related photos-with-captions were published in Tech Talk’s general spaces, including three arts stories and two arts photo-captions on the front page. Activities and individuals involved in arts were cited four times in Tech Talk’s "Here & There" column and five times in the "Awards & Honors" column. Heinemann was the primary writer; other contributors included Haller, members of the News Office staff and members of the MIT arts community.

SELECTED MEDIA ATTENTION

The following are some of the people and projects across the Institute who received external media attention through press releases and publicity efforts initiated by Arts Communication:

The newly-inaugurated Freshman Arts Program during Orientation Week

Council for the Arts at MIT (CAMIT)’s presentation of McDermott and Kepes Awards to Diller + Scofidio and Howard Johnson, respectively

Edward James Olmos’ lectures at MIT.

Two MIT faculty artists chosen for 2000 Whitney Biennial (Dennis Adams and Krysztof Wodiczko).

Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s residency and presentation of Abramowitz Memorial lecture with collaborator Roberto Sifuentes

The appointment of Jane Farver as director of the List Visual Arts Center

The appointment of Bill Arning as curator of the List Visual Arts Center

A performance by MIT’s East African Music Ensemble (MITCAN) featuring Professor James Makubuya and Chinese pipa soloist Wu Man.

Cambridge First Day at MIT, which honored four Cambridge-based arts organizations.

OTHER NATIONAL ATTENTION

Artist-in-Residence Arthur Ganson was featured in a Forbes Magazine article on "The art and soul of a new machine."

National Public Radio’s November 13 broadcast of "The World of Opera" featured the Houston Grand Opera’s performance of Resurrection, written by Media Laboratory Associate Professor Tod Machover (music) and Music and Theater Arts Lecturer Laura Harrington (libretto). Preceding the broadcast, Lou Santacroce interviewed Professor Machover for the irreverent "At the Opera." The work received critical attention from publications such as Newsweek, Newsday, The New York Times, the New York Post, New York Daily News, the Washington Post, Toronto Globe and Mail and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

The premiere of The Great Gatsby by Institute Professor of Music John Harbison at the Metropolitan Opera received wide media attention, locally, nationally and internationally.

The Museum Loan Network, the MIT-based program that promotes collection sharing among US museums, was the subject of a feature story on NBC Nightly News on April 8. The Network is "helping institutions large and small bring America’s hidden heritage out in plain sight," said NBC, which noted that "since its founding in 1995, the program has provided over $2 million in grants to 132 institutions in 42 states."

OTHER LOCAL ATTENTION

The Freshman Arts Program–a student-designed pre-Orientation program implemented this year–prompted a major feature in the Boston Globe. Headlined, "Left brain, meet the right," the article explained how this new program "puts science scholars back in touch with their creative and playful selves," while following the students to several of the more than 30 workshops "designed by MIT students, an inventive and ingenious bunch if ever there was one."

The annual Boston Phoenix "The Best" supplement (November 5) named MIT’s noon hour Chapel Concerts as the "Best place to hear live music in the middle of a weekday." Praising the Eero Saarinen-designed building as "unique both visually and acoustically," the Phoenix informed readers that "a holy hour there–Thursdays at noon throughout most of the academic year–will make your day, and each concert is a different kind of treat... Or just show up any time the chapel is open and sit for a bit on the straight-backed wicker chairs to enjoy the interplay of light and silence."

MIT fared well in the Boston Globe’s annual "Best of 1999" lists. Christine Temin’s compilation of "Best Art" included Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons’ installation Meanwhile the Girls Were Playing at the List Visual Arts Center (number seven on a list of ten). Richard Dyer included Institute Professor of Music John Harbison twice on his list of "Best Classical Music"–once under best new or recent works for his new opera, The Great Gatsby, and again as "Musician of the Year," declaring that "John Harbison stands as a model of musical citizenship."

Two MIT composers made Boston Globe columnist Richard Dyer’s listing of defining moments in classical music for the Globe’s end-of-the-century retrospective series on the arts. Media Laboratory Associate Professor Tod Machover’s opera Valis was included as a defining moment of the years 1981—89 and Institute Professor John Harbison’s opera, The Great Gatsby was recognized for 1991—99.

In other year-end accolades, the List Visual Arts Center’s Corporal Politics scored in the Boston Herald’s list of highs for the decade. The controversial 1992 exhibition, which received donations from the rock group Aerosmith and playwright Jon Robin Baitz after the National Endowment for the Arts revoked funding, included images of body parts to represent the fragmentation and alienation of individuals in society.

A Thanksgiving Day Boston Globe feature on the MIT Museum’s monthly Family Adventures in Science and Technology Programs proclaimed that the MIT Museum makes science "family fun." Writer Karen Campbell also praised the appeal of the exhibitions–"As one wanders from room to room, there is a continual sense of surprise and delight at the poetry and whimsy of scientific and technological achievement."

Dramashop’s Ethnographic Museum of Irrelevant Races (EMIR), a temporary installation of satirical living dioramas, directed by internationally-known performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, attracted the attention of Boston Globe correspondent Elijah Wald. "Gómez-Peña ...feels that the young people he is working with do not have ‘the ideological and cultural certainties that our generation had,’ " Mr. Wald wrote in a lengthy feature article. "On the other hand, he thinks that this has its advantages, at least for performers. They can stand between cultures, ages, political affiliations, and comment both as insiders and outsiders. Thus the spectacle of MIT students, a privileged minority in many ways, acting out the anger, stereotypes, and confusion of their ethnic, national and socio-sexual backgrounds."

"Although [MIT] is rightly acknowledged for science and technology, what is less evident is its great contribution to the arts and humanities," begins an article in the April/May Art New England about the List Visual Arts Center’s new director Jane Farver. "Significantly, [Ms. Farver] talks about responding to the needs of MIT, its brilliant faculty, staff, and student body, and to the extended Boston arts community as well," writes Charles Giuliano. Her appointment, he says, "feels refreshingly different."

An April 27 "Cyberarts Special" issue of the Boston Globe Calendar featured alumna Teresa Marrin Nakra, who received her PhD in Media Arts And Sciences in February, 2000, and Associate Professor Tod Machover. Calling MIT’s Media Lab the "epicenter of the city’s classical electronic music scene," Christopher Muther wrote, "Machover plays musical Willie Wonka over a fantastic array of futuristic technology. There are bottles that emit sounds when the stoppers are removed, a denim jacket sewn with a thread that plays music as you walk, and a ball stuffed with a tiny MIDI synthesizer that makes music as you squeeze it."

"When you consider that maybe one in four of MIT’s students might just as well have qualified for admission to the New England Conservatory, the anecdotal correlation between music and the sciences acquires evidentiary weight," wrote Boston Globe Correspondent Michael Manning in his review of the MIT Symphony Orchestra’s May 12 concert. Mr. Manning praised the orchestra’s "solid musical values," conductor Dante Anzolini’s "simple, unaffected direction," and noted that pianist David Deveau (soloist for Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto) "stressed lyricism over grandeur... [taking] pains to illuminate, even manipulate the harmonic rhythm, exposing chordal contours submerged in the texture, stressing leading tones and upbeats to gild the stately masterpiece with flecks of detail."

The Globe published an article previewing Zojeila Itzel Flores’ Panamanian dance performance (Oct. 9). Ms. Flores had used her 1998 List Foundation Fellowship in the Arts for Students of Color to "make a journey of the heart into her heritage and identity," wrote Debra Cash, explaining the biology senior’s summer travels to Panama to learn the native dances and the folklore behind them. Ms. Cash described the List Fellowship Program as a "remarkable program that attempts to affirm the diverse cultural identities of MIT students at the same time that it is nurturing their emergence as members of the international technical elites."

More information about the Office of the Arts can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/arts/.

Mary L. Haller

COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

The Council celebrated the new millennium by increasing its membership to a record high number; fundraising achievement followed suit with our best gift total ever, coinciding with MIT’s new capital campaign.

Council Standing Committees

Annual Meeting (Dorothea Endicott, chair). The 27th Annual Meeting of the Council for the Arts at MIT took place on October 28 and 29, and was focused on Architecture. The Annual Meeting dinner was held on Thursday evening, October 28, at Le Hotel Meridien in Boston, at which the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts was presented to the architect-artist team Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio (See Special Programs, below). The Friday morning business meeting began with an address by Provost Bob Brown and Chancellor Lawrence Bacow. Committee reports followed and a panel discussion on the state of the School of Architecture at MIT led by MIT faculty member Wellington Reiter.

The Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize was presented to President Emeritus Howard Johnson (see Special Programs, below) at the Annual Meeting luncheon on Friday, October 29.

Arts Scholars Committee (Brit d’Arbeloff, chair). This, the newest of the Council’s programs continues to experience "growing pains" as members of the committee and Council staff work to create the appropriate environment for the development of a community of student artists. This year the monthly programs included a hands-on printmaking session, a try at the Gamelan, and a trip to see the Huntington Theater’s production of Philip Kan Gotanda’s play, The Sisters Matsumoto, followed by a discussion with cast member Ryun Yu ’96, the first MIT student to graduate with a degree in Theater Arts.

Communications (Pepi Weis, chair). The Communications committee produced three issues of the Council newsletter, Council Currents, this year, to great success. Council Currents is written by Council members, for Council members.

Development (Daniel Vershbow ’45, chair). As of this writing (7/11/00) 72 Council members provided unrestricted contributions averaging $4,147. Nineteen non-member donors contributed unrestricted gifts averaging $1,945. The total raised for the year was $335,549.

Grants Program (Bradford M. Endicott ’49, chair). The Grants Committee awarded a total of $79,595 in the form of 40 grants this year. The projects requesting funding included the very straightforward, such as the third Artist Behind the Desk Series, which features MIT staff people exhibiting their works of visual art, having recitals, poetry readings and dramatic presentations. The Committee also funded somewhat esoteric projects such as an interactive wall sculpture made entirely of the eyes and beaks from the toys known as "Furbies." This is the normal course of the Grants program, which receives such requests for support for all sorts of creative endeavors.

Membership (Bernard G. Palitz ’47, chair). As of this writing, Council membership stands at 112, with six ex officio members and 106 regular members. The following new members have joined the ranks of the Council since last July: Michael Coden ’67, Mark Epstein ’63 Charles Frankel ’83, Darian Hendricks ’89, Rhoda Katzenstein, Christine Lamond, Emanuel Nadler ’54, Andrea Nasher, Sara-Ann Sanders and Toby Sanders ’90 (our first mother-daughter Council members) Michael Speciner ’68 and Glenn P. Strehle ’58.

Special Events Committee (Catherine N. Stratton, chair). On March 23—26, 2000, a group of 40 Council members and staff traveled to Miami, Florida for the fourth Council for the Arts at MIT Arts Excursion. Highlights included visits to the private collections of Martin Z. Margulies, Ruth and Richard Shack, and Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz. Council member Paul Gluck served as host and tour guide for the convivial group. A splendid and exhausting time was had by all.

Affiliated Committees

List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) Advisory Board (Kitty Glantz, chair). A new curator, Bill Arning, was hired.

MIT Museum Advisory Board (Harvey I. Steinberg ’54, chair). The MIT Museum Board initiated the fundraising effort for the renovation of the façade of the MIT Museum Building, designed by Wellington Reiter.

Artist-in-Residence Committee (Stephen Memishian ’70, chair). Organized along the lines of the MIT Museum and LVAC Boards described above. This committee works with MIT Office of the Arts Director of Special Programs Maureen Costello and a panel of arts professionals, Council Members and artists to bring artists to the MIT campus to work throughout the Institute.

Special Programs

Since 1980, the Council has underwritten MIT’s enrollment in the University Membership Program offered by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This program provides free admission and discount benefits to all MIT undergraduate and graduate students, as well as ten membership cards for the daily use of MIT faculty and staff.

Sixty-two members and guests of the Council for the Arts at MIT attended the January 12, 2000 performance of MIT Institute Professor John Harbison’s new opera, The Great Gatsby at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. Prior to the event, Council member Stuart Uram and his wife Lilly Langotsky held a wonderful cocktail reception in their home, complete with a breathtaking view of Manhattan from the 55th floor.

The free-ticket program with the Boston Symphony Orchestra continued this year. MIT students can obtain, with their student ID, free admittance to Thursday evening and Friday afternoon concerts on a day-of-show, stand-by basis. The success of this unique program continues unabated.

The successful Student Performing Arts Excursions Series continued, with tickets to the following events made available at no charge to MIT students: humorist-essayist David Sedaris at Sanders Theater; Chekhov’s Ivanov and Dario Fo’s We Won’t Pay! We Won’t Pay! at the American Repertory Theater; George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession at the Huntington Theater, World Music’s presentation of the Masters’ Soul of Mbira (African thumb piano); The Boston Lyric Opera’s production of Philip Glass’ Akhnaten and the National Ballet of Mozambique.

The Gyorgy Kepes Fellowship Prize was presented by Angus MacDonald to President Emeritus Howard Johnson at the Annual Meeting luncheon on Friday, Oct. 23. Dr. Johnson most generously donated his prize money to the Council for the Arts at MIT. At the Annual Meeting dinner at Le Hotel Meridien, the Eugene McDermott Award was presented by Dorothea Endicott (McDermott Award Committee chair) and Wellington Reiter (MIT Architecture faculty member) to Diller + Scofidio, New York-based architecture team.

At the Institute Awards Convocation on May 2, Associate Provost for the Arts Alan Brody presented the Laya and Jerome B. Wiesner Student Art Awards to Sean Sutherland ’00, Jason Krug ’00 and Gabor Csanyi (G). The Louis Sudler Prize was presented to Thomas Cork ’00 for his achievement in Theater Arts.

More information about the Council for the Arts can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/arts/camit.all.html.

Susan R. Cohen

SPECIAL PROGRAMS

Special Programs began its tenth anniversary year at MIT. The diverse palette of Artist-in-Residence programs has included a wide range of artists working in departments throughout MIT over the years and an Advisory Board Sub-committee has been formed to plan a celebration of this work for Spring 2001. The scope and depth of the residencies of performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña in the School of Humanities and of sound and environmental artist Diane Willow in the Media Lab marked highpoints in this year’s programs.

Artist-in-Residence Advisory Board

In its third year, the Advisory Board, under the leadership of chair Steve Memishian G’70, developed a five year plan, including budget projections and fundraising strategies to double the size of the Artist-in-Residence Program. The Board hopes to use the mission statement, "Goals and Strategies" developed last year as the foundation for a fundraising "viewbook." Development Officer Glenn Billingsley will be invited to the first meeting of next year to advise on further fundraising efforts.

A process of program evaluation was proposed and tested and several discussions of what is the essence of an effective program were conducted. Felice Frankel, Michael Wenyon and Susan Gamble and Diane Willow each presented their Residency work to the Board.

Memishian proposed a rotation plan to recruit new membership for the Board. This plan, which invites the current members to stay until the last meeting in 2001, will be presented in September.

School of Humanities and Social Science

In collaboration with the Theater Section, Foreign Languages and Literatures, the Comparative Media Studies Program and the Program in Women Studies, the William L. Abramowitz Program sponsored the fall residency program of performance artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes. Substantial collaboration supported integrating these artists into classes, presenting a film series of their work and hosting a public discussion of their controversial approaches to performance.

Special Programs and collaborating departments also recruited support from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor Program and the Associate Provost for the Arts for Gómez-Peña’s return in January, for an Independent Activities Period (IAP) Program with Theater’s Dramashop. Gómez-Peña, Assistant Professor Brenda Cotto-Escalera and invited guest, Dr. Leticia Nieto, created a new production with Dramashop students. The Ethnographic Museum of Irrelevant Races, a provocative multi-media performance of living dioramas, opened in February 2000.

In addition, the Theater Section and the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies supported lecture-demonstrations with choreographer Donald Byrd; Split Britches Theater Company; Beijing Opera scholar Ghaffar Pourazar and theater artists Jola Cynkutis and Khalid Tyabji.

School of Architecture

Diane Willow, sound and environmental artist, began her first year as an Artist-in-Residence, in collaboration with Professor Mitchel Resnick of the Epistemology and Learning Group of the Media Laboratory and with Dr. Martha Gray in Health Sciences and Technology. In collaboration with MIT students, Willow created two installations in the course of the 1999—2000 school year. The Arbor–a bamboo construction designed to exhibit playful creations and projects made by the Epistemology and Learning Group and their guests–was installed around the entrance to the group’s primary workspace for The Mindfest Conference in the Fall of 1999. SEAt, an interactive, double-seated, sound sculpture, delighted the MIT community in three locations on campus in late Spring and Summer 2000. Diane Willow was invited to continue in the Residency Program in 2000—01, and was invited to join the staff of the Epistemology and Learning Group.

1999 McDermott Award winners in architecture Diller and Scofidio were scheduled for a Spring residency program, but were forced to cancel due to unexpected business in Switzerland. The program is rescheduled for October 2000.

Performance Artist Ellen Zweig worked with support from the Office of Academic Computing and in collaboration with Professor Joan Jonas and Lecturer Julia Scher of the Visual Arts Program and Ed Barrett from the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. Zweig worked with MIT and New York University students to create a live interactive performance over Internet 2 entitled, "The Electric Travels of Lucy Anna Morel," in the Spring semester. Zweig was invited to return in the Fall of 2000 with support from the Ida Ely Rubin Fund.

School of Engineering

Kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson worked with the Department of Mechanical Engineering with support from the Ida Ely Rubin Fund. He continued with Professor Samir Nayfeh and students in "Advanced Kinematics 27.2" along with offering well attended talks in the Gestural Engineering exhibition at the MIT Museum. Professor Nayfeh continued work on "The Flickering Tower."

Michael Wenyon and Susan Gamble, holography and new media artists, finished their final year at the Haystack Observatory. They were invited by Jane Pickering to mount an exhibition of the resulting works in the Compton Gallery. Observing the Observers... ran February 19—May 6, accompanied by an exhibition catalog. A Haystack Observatory historical exhibition was displayed in the adjacent corridor.

Felice Frankel began to work, with support from the Provost and the Associate Provost for the Arts, in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and her exhibition, On the Surface of Things, continued to travel throughout the United States. In partnership with Boyce Rensberger, director of the Knight Fellowship, a conference on "Image and Meaning: Communicating Science and Technology" is being planned for June 14—17, 2001. The curriculum on visualizing science supported by the NSF neared completion.

Sloan School of Management

In collaboration with the Sloan School of Management and the Admissions Office, the Alan W. Katzenstein Memorial Program sponsored a Residency with Edward James Olmos, actor and activist. Public programs were offered to Latino student groups, Management and Theater students and the MIT community.

The List Foundation Fellowship Program In The Arts

The List Foundation Fellowship Program in the Arts for students of color continued to use the same name with support from the Provost. Fellowships were given to Kevin Choi ’01 (management) for a video project and Helen Lee ’00 (architecture) to do an installation project including glassblowing and creative writing. Rigel Stuhmiller ’99 continued work on her graphic novel, and Zojeila Itzel Flores ’00 completed her project on Panamanian Folklore and Dance with a recital in Killian Hall.

Institute Committees

The Committee on Campus Race Relations' Subcommittee for RACE2000! produced an educational video entitled Making Whiteness Visible: The Conversation No One Wants to Have with members of the faculty, staff and students. The tape features interviews conducted by staff person Tobie Weiner and Professor Lora Wildenthal about how white members of the MIT community think about race and racism. The video was introduced to small groups within the MIT community and more widespread distribution and public programming on this topic is planned for the fall.

More information about Special Programs in the Office of the Arts can be found on the World Wide Web at http://web.mit.edu/arts/specprogs.all.html.

Maureen Costello

MIT Reports to the President 1999–2000