2025 SPE Annual Conference: Adaptations
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Andrea Frank
Friday, November 08 - 1:00PM to 1:45PM
From 2003 to 2012 I taught Photography and Related Media as a full-time lecturer in the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology, a small, dynamic program within the Architecture Department.
During my tenure there, my art practice became increasingly more influenced by the research being done within this incredible institution. I am proposing an image maker/educator presentation, which juxtaposes art projects realized during my time teaching at MIT with the courses I taught there, themselves extensions of my artistic research. The network of influences I experiencedthrough individuals, departments, processes, students, and technologiesserves as red thread throughout the presentation.
Between 2004 and 2008 I created the interview and portrait book project Visions: MIT Interviews in response to my growing concern with global challenges and the fragmentation and specialization of knowledge in society. The idea was to use MIT as a microcosm of global research trends and to juxtapose interviews with researchers in disparate fields such as energy, climate change, nanotechnology, globalization, economics, or art in order to tease out cross-connections.
These interviews with colleagues inspired me to teach a series of photography courses which focused on specific departmentssuch as Nuclear Science, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the Broad Institute (Genome research), and Earth and Planetary Sciencesand the research taking place within them. The courses included site visits, conversations with scientists, photographic research, readings, and final exhibitions of student work in the respective Departments.
A photographic series on global trade, Ports and Ships (2004-08), which I developed parallel to Visions, proved to be a great incubator for thought as I traveled around the world considering various aspects of world trade and the vast maritime network that moves consumer goods around the globe.
My interview with John Sterman, Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group, inspired me to study System Dynamics at MIT, with the goal of applying a Systems approach to my work. Systems modeling brought home the meaning of concepts such as feedback, exponential growth, tipping points, etc. and sharpened my thinking about interrelated issues such as human population growth, industrialization, global warming, and extinction of species.
Parallel to this research I created photographic cut-out objects using a laser cutter, addressing the extinction of species (the Flora and Fauna series), and I began exhibiting different bodies of work in close juxtaposition to encourage cross-readings. I also taught Photography courses thematically centered on Systems thinking.
When considering the narrow system boundaries and lack of long-term perspective in our thinking, education again crystallized as a crucial area to be rethought as we move toward a more sustainable path of living on this planet. The photographic series Classrooms (2011) portrays MIT's technology infused classrooms, visually examining the context where our societal paradigms, including our deep trust in and dependence on technology, are handed down.
The video Cuts (2012) traces the movement of a laser cutter dissecting the visual and ecological complexity of a forest scene, acting as a metaphor for humanity's destructive impact on the earth.
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Andrea Frank
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