FAST Installations: Melting, Floating, Flowering Art on Campus

MIT artists and architects, both faculty and students, are transforming bits of campus in honor of the Institute's sesquicentennial. From February to May, a growing collection of some 20 installations—architectural pavilions, sculptural displays, and artworks incorporating sound, light, and innovation—is springing up throughout the campus, both indoors and out. Check the schedule for locations and dates of pieces such as the hanging LED butterflies in Building 14 or the Night of Numbers outdoor projection to appear in April on the facade of Building 66.

Most installations will continue to be on display, but one has literally melted away. Watch a video on Ice Wall featuring a sinuous wall built by architectural graduate student Yushiro Okamoto and colleagues in February in Killian Court. As the ice melted, seeds frozen inside the ice blocks reached the ground and as spring warms up, they are expected to germinate, grow, and bloom to celebrate MIT150.

May 7 should be a particularly enchanting evening to be on campus for FAST Light, a night of kinetic illumination. Watch the launch of Otto Piene’s Sky Event, set into motion when a group of students and alumni fly a large-scale, brightly lit star over Killian Court. From dusk until dark, FAST Light will glow along the Charles River waterfront and on MIT’s campus with projects that incorporate light, taking advantage of MIT’s infrastructure in dynamic and energy-efficient ways. Catch a glimpse of Light Drift by J. Meejin Yoon, an architecture faculty member, set for display on the Charles River that evening.