Media Arts and Sciences

Professor Hiroshi Ishii's musicBottles work as containers and controls for digital information - the 'sounds' of the violin, the cello and the piano in Edouard Lalo's Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 7.
Professor Hiroshi Ishii's musicBottles work as containers and controls for digital information - the 'sounds' of the violin, the cello and the piano in Edouard Lalo's Piano Trio in C Minor, Op. 7. (Photo courtesy NCC.)

If anything can be certain about the future, it is that the influence of technology, especially digital technology, will continue to grow and to profoundly change how we express ourselves, how we communicate with each other and how we perceive, think about and interact with our world.

These "mediating technologies" are only in the first stages of their modern evolution; they are still crude, unwieldy, unpersonalized and poorly matched to the human needs of their users. Their fullest development in those terms is emerging as one of the principal technical and design challenges of the emerging information age.

At MIT, the phrase Media Arts and Sciences signifies the study, invention and creative use of enabling technologies for understanding and expression by people and machines. The field is rooted in modern communication, computer and human sciences, and the academic program is intimately linked with research programs within the Media Laboratory. Computers and computation are the most prominent common denominators of this multi-disciplinary merger of previously separate domains. For underlying the explosive advances of the various technologies involved, we are discovering and cultivating a new set of shared intellectual and practical concerns that are becoming the foundations of a new academic discipline. In its simplest form, the field of Media Arts and Sciences can be thought of as exploring the technical, cognitive and aesthetic bases of satisfying human interaction as mediated by technology. In more forward-looking terms, it addresses the quality of life in the information-rich environment of the future.

Department of Media Arts and Sciences links

Visit the MIT Department of Media Arts and Sciences home page at:
http://www.media.mit.edu/mas/

Review the MIT Department of Media Arts and Sciences curriculum at:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/resources/curriculum/index.htm#mas


Updated within the past 180 days

MIT Course #Course TitleTerm
NEW
MAS.160Signals, Systems and Information for Media TechnologyFall 2007
 MAS.478Special Topics in Multimedia Production: Experiences in Interactive ArtFall 2003
NEW
MAS.510Signals, Systems and Information for Media TechnologyFall 2007
NEW
MAS.511Signals, Systems and Information for Media TechnologyFall 2007
 MAS.622JPattern Recognition and AnalysisFall 2006
 MAS.630Affective ComputingSpring 2008
NEW
MAS.632Conversational Computer SystemsFall 2008
 MAS.666Developmental EntrepreneurshipFall 2003
 MAS.712How to Learn (Almost) AnythingSpring 2001
 MAS.714JTechnologies for Creative LearningFall 2004
 MAS.742Industrial Design Intelligence: A Cognitive Approach to EngineeringFall 2003
 MAS.845Special Topics in Cinematic StorytellingSpring 2004
 MAS.857JOptical EngineeringSpring 2002
 MAS.863How to Make (Almost) AnythingFall 2002
 MAS.865JQuantum Information ScienceSpring 2006
 MAS.878Special Topics in Multimedia Production: Experiences in Interactive ArtFall 2003
 MAS.961Numeric PhotographyFall 1998
 MAS.961Designing Sociable MediaSpring 2001
 MAS.961Seminar on Deep EngagementFall 2004
 MAS.961Ambient IntelligenceSpring 2005
 MAS.962Digital TypographyFall 1997
 MAS.962Special Topics in Media Technology: Computational SemanticsFall 2002
 MAS.962The Nature of Constructionist LearningSpring 2003
 MAS.962Common Sense Reasoning for Interactive ApplicationsFall 2006
 MAS.962Autism Theory and TechnologySpring 2007
 MAS.963Out of Context: A Course on Computer Systems That Adapt To, and Learn From, ContextFall 2001
 MAS.963Techno-identity: Who we are and how we perceive ourselves and othersSpring 2002
 MAS.963Ambient IntelligenceSpring 2004
 MAS.963Technological Tools for School ReformFall 2005
NEW
MAS.963Special Topics: Computational Camera and PhotographyFall 2008
 MAS.964Common Sense Reasoning for Interactive ApplicationsFall 2002
 MAS.964Common Sense Reasoning for Interactive ApplicationsFall 2006
 MAS.965Special Topics in Media Technology: Cooperative MachinesFall 2003
 MAS.965Social VisualizationFall 2004
 MAS.965Relational MachinesSpring 2005
 MAS.966Digital AnthropologySpring 2003
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