This MIT Course Is Designed to Let Things Go Wrong
At MIT, a course called Creating Art, Thinking Science deliberately places artists and scientists in situations where things don’t work as planned. Students use advanced scientific tools—like nanofabrication and microscopy—for creative projects that often misbehave, fail, or produce results no one expected.
The real challenge isn’t technical skill, but translation: artists and scientists think, speak, and evaluate success differently. Through trial, misunderstanding, and iteration, students discover a “third space” where failure becomes productive rather than embarrassing.
Instead of polished outcomes, the course values what emerges when precision tools are misused, plans collapse, and surprises appear. The lesson is simple and powerful: failure isn’t the opposite of progress—it’s often how insight, creativity, and unexpected beauty actually happen.
MIT’s Art, Culture, and Technology program offers an innovative class that explores the intersection of art and science. The class, Creating Art, Thinking Science, provides students with access to advanced technological resources and mentorship, fostering a dialogue between scientists and artists. The class’s outcomes, showcased in an exhibition at MIT.nano, demonstrate the potential for collaboration between these fields to humanize technology and inspire innovation.
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