The Artist: Means, Meaning, and Impact in the 21st Century

December 9, 2016, at the MIT Media Lab (Cambridge, Massachusetts)

What new stories can be told—and new experiences created—that are maximally synergistic and complementary with evolving tools and techniques? How will artists map their work on to the changing contemporary brain? Can artistic practice somehow evade—or perhaps benefit from—the changes affecting audiences in virtually every other aspect of their lives? What must managers and theater architects know about artistic practice in the digital age in order to ready their institutions for new modes of creation and distribution? How can technology enhance and extend—rather than inhibit or replace—human potential for expression, connection, and collaboration?

Participants in the fourth debate of the "Generation Elsewhere: Art in the Age of Distraction" series were:

• Hasan Elahi, Interdisciplinary Artist and Associate Professor of Art, University of Maryland;
• Tod Machover (moderator-speaker), Composer, Inventor, Professor, and Director of the Opera of the Future Group, MIT Media Lab;
• Hiromi Ozaki (Sputniko!), Designer, Artist, and Assistant Professor, MIT Media Lab; and
• Kevin Slavin, Designer, Social Theorist, and Assistant Professor, MIT Media Lab.  

Mr. Machover of the MIT Media Lab opened the event with an artist’s response to the DeVos Institute’s “Generation Elsewhere” series and a reflection on the most urgent challenges and opportunities facing the intersection of the arts, design, technology, and science over the coming years.

See below for video excerpts.