Boston was cold. After the relative warmth of the first few days in New York this city, only four hours drive north, was a plunge back into icy winter. 75 down to 40, in the old numbers.
As a result much of what I saw in Boston was inside or underground. There was a Common, sure, because the metro passed beneath it. Harvard had a yard, rushed through on the way to one of the nearby museums.
I was in town to visit U___, a colleague from Lahore. She is studying at MassArts and is one of the many graduate students from Pakistan on Fulbright scholarships. She has almost finished her first year here, a year she found difficult and thrilling in almost equal measure.
The thrill comes from the access to research, to stuff. On Tuesday we visited the MIT Media Lab, where bright sparks and pranksters condense the future down into a physical presence. Strips of hanging paper pulse and contract as tiny electrical charges tense the single strand of bright metal that runs down their centres. Muscle wire.
There are eight legged walking machines, intelligent fabrics, ceramics as thin as tissue. Not all is bleeding edge. On the second floor is propped a lenticular panel, positioned so that as the elevator ascends the image changes. 1, 2, 3, 4. No haptic feedback, no touch screen interactivity. Just light and carefully thought out geometry.
I would like to stay longer, see more, but class is beginning and U___ must go. Outside, across a courtyard, is the titanium skinned inflorescence of a Gehry building.
As a result much of what I saw in Boston was inside or underground. There was a Common, sure, because the metro passed beneath it. Harvard had a yard, rushed through on the way to one of the nearby museums.
I was in town to visit U___, a colleague from Lahore. She is studying at MassArts and is one of the many graduate students from Pakistan on Fulbright scholarships. She has almost finished her first year here, a year she found difficult and thrilling in almost equal measure.
The thrill comes from the access to research, to stuff. On Tuesday we visited the MIT Media Lab, where bright sparks and pranksters condense the future down into a physical presence. Strips of hanging paper pulse and contract as tiny electrical charges tense the single strand of bright metal that runs down their centres. Muscle wire.
There are eight legged walking machines, intelligent fabrics, ceramics as thin as tissue. Not all is bleeding edge. On the second floor is propped a lenticular panel, positioned so that as the elevator ascends the image changes. 1, 2, 3, 4. No haptic feedback, no touch screen interactivity. Just light and carefully thought out geometry.
I would like to stay longer, see more, but class is beginning and U___ must go. Outside, across a courtyard, is the titanium skinned inflorescence of a Gehry building.
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