Death and the Powers: US Premiere March 18
Death and the Powers is a new opera by composer Tod Machover and developed at the MIT Media Lab, in collaboration with the American Repertory Theater and Chicago Opera Theater. It is a one-act, full evening work that tells the story of Simon Powers, a successful and powerful businessman and inventor, who wants to go beyond the bounds of humanity. Reaching the end of his life, Powers faces the question of his legacy: “When I die, what remains? What will I leave behind? What can I control? What can I perpetuate?” He is now conducting the last experiment of his life, passing from one form of existence to another in an effort to project himself into the future. Whether or not he is actually alive is a question. Simon Powers is himself now a System. His family, friends and associates must decide what this means, how it affects them, and whether to follow.
Read more:
- Machover’s “robot opera” to kick off Chicago Opera Theater season (Chicago Classical Review, March 27, 2011)
- MIT Robots Take Stage In New Opera (PCWorld, March 21, 2011)
- Death and the Powers: The robots' opera (NewScientist, March 21, 2011)
- Second Life: Death and the Powers from ART
- DEATH AND THE POWERS: The Robots' Opera (MIT Admissions website, March 17, 2011)
- Preview: Love and Robots in Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera (The Boston Phoenix, March 16, 2011)
- Interview: Tod Machover, creator of The Death and the Powers (Time Out Boston, March 15, 2011)
- Machover, Touching with Sound (The Boston Musical Intelligencer, March 15, 2011)
- Tod Machover on BBC's The Strand (March 13, 2011) [Machover portion is Chapter 3]
- Powered up and programmed to perform (Boston Globe, March 13, 2011)
- Robotic and music combo gives audience something new (Variety, March 12, 2011)
- High-Tech Opera Features Robots as Stars (NPR Science Friday, March 11, 2011)
- Robot Opera and Immortality (WBUR's On Point, March 7, 2011)
- A thoroughly modern opera (Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2011)
- Guitar Hero Goes to the Opera (The Atlantic, April 2011)
(The Boston Globe, March 21, 2011)
Media Lab Work in MIT 150 Exhibition
The 25-year history of the Media Lab's cutting-edge research is represented by nine projects in the MIT Museum's exhibition celebrating the Institute's 150th anniversary.
- Tech Night at the Pops, MIT Alumni Association and Boston Pops, 1896 to present
- CityCar Electric Vehicle, Smart Cities Group, MIT Media Lab, 2006–Present
- Visible Language Workshop, Muriel Cooper, 1975
- One Laptop per Child XO Laptop, Nicholas Negroponte, 2002
- Low-Cost Prescription Eyeglass Lens Fabricator, Saul Griffith, 2004
- PowerFoot One Prosthetic Foot, Hugh Herr, 2007
- "Minsky Arm," Marvin Minsky, 1967–1973
- Scratch, Mitchel Resnick, MIT Media Lab Lifelong Kindergarten Group, 2007
- Digital Holography, Stephen Benton, Spatial Imaging Group, MIT Media Lab, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1985
And a tenth item:
- MIT Press’ Most Influential Publications, 1926–Present
On the list: Marvin Minsky's and Seymour Papert's Perceptrons (1969, 1987) and Nicholas Negroponte's The Architecture Machine (1970)
The Glass Infrastructure
This project builds an open, social information window into the Media Lab using 30 touch-sensitive screens strategically placed throughout the Media Lab complex. The experience of using these screens is optimized for guests and visitors who collaboratively explore and uncover the people, ideas, and connections behind the research of the Lab. The system also makes suggestions about who to meet, where they may be, and what projects and people—represented as "charms"—one ought to collect, trade, and share. An RFID infrastructure allows us to customize the experience for each visitor, allowing the visitor to save pointers to projects and people for future reference. This is a model for an open IT system that can be used anywhere; it is a framework for developing open-area and personally responsive access methods. Media Lab sponsor Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. donated the screens for this project.
Read more:
- "RFID Helps Suggest Exhibits at MIT Media Lab"
- "MIT Media Lab Launches Virtual RFID-Powered Blackboard"
- "RFID and 'The Glass Infrastructure' Network"
