October 18, 2005 Mr. and Mrs. John Donor 123 Anywhere Place Boston, MA 02116 Dear Mr. and Mrs. Donor: It has been a little over a year since the dedication of the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT. We are happy to report that, since that day, the Stata Center has truly become a center of campus life fostering new connections among research and educational activities and student life. Remarkable things have already happened at “Stata.” Here are just a few examples. Exciting new avenues of research have opened as a result of the Stata Center’s open design. As representatives of the Center’s two resident departments, we are happy to report that our programs’ transitions to their new homes have been both seamless and rewarding. The theory behind Gehry’s designthat organizing the building into “neighborhoods” would promote communication and resource-sharing among various disciplineshas indeed paid real-world dividends. Linguists in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy cooperated with colleagues in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) on a “Computational Linguistics Fest”two weeks of classes and talks held during Independent Activities Period (IAP) in January 2005, with speakers from mathematics, computer science, cognitive science, and linguistics all participating. Collaborations sparked by physical proximity have generated new research projects for linguistics doctoral students. In addition, the Stata Center was the venue for last summer’s Linguistics Society of America’s Summer Institute, which drew a thousand participants from the U.S. and elsewhere. MIT linguists, philosophers, computer scientists, and cognitive scientists all offered courses for this event. Already we see faculty and students from CSAIL and the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) interacting closely on joint ventures, which has led to a number of exciting new projects. In most cases, these ventures might not have arisen were it not for the “elevator conversations” and the lunchroom discussions that arise naturally out of the openness of the building. For example, Alan Willsky (LIDS), Bill Freeman (CSAIL), and Trevor Darrell (CSAIL) are working on several new projects that combine computer vision methodologies with statistical signal processing techniques; and David Karger (CSAIL) and Muriel Medard (LIDS) are collaborating on network coding. As well, we are seeing interactions among CSAIL residents and other members of EECS that are a function of their physical proximity.

The Stata Center advances the connection between art and technology. World-renowned artists inhabit the same space as MIT’s distinguished scholars and researchers. Resident artists like acclaimed filmmaker Michel Gondry and the Tony Award-winning director of The Lion King, Julie Taymor, draw inspiration from the innovations and energy in Stata’s labs. Also, nearly a dozen works of art have been put on public display. In addition to the Bertrand photographs that line the Student Street, and Dmitri Hadzi’s “Cyclitic Sentinel,” which dominates the third floor Gates Building balcony, student art is also adding to the chorus of color, line, and form in Gehry’s building. Currently, the Office of the Arts’ Student Mural Competition winner, “The Kiss,” by graduate students Jessica Banks (CSAIL) and Daniel Paluska (MechE), together with the CSAIL researcher and artist known as jackbackrack, is on display just off the Student Street. Enclosed, you will find a rendering of the winning mural as well as a more complete description of the project. The union of art and technologywhich Gehry’s Stata Center was designed to fosterwill flourish, as resident artists, students, faculty, and researchers continue to work side-by-side within Stata’s walls. The Stata Center has become a focal point of campus life. In addition to the Student Street, the Forbes Family Café, and the Wang Fitness Center and Alumni Pool, a variety of special events have helped define the building’s role as a crossroads for life on campus. One such event was the 2004 Freshman Orientation Party. The first class to enter MIT following the Stata Center’s completion, the Class of 2008 was treated to a “building tour” like no other. Students danced in the Taiwan Semiconductor and Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Dreyfoos Lobbies, played human chess in the Dertouzos Amphitheatre, and enjoyed laser tag in Stata’s basement. Displaying characteristic MIT ingenuity and resourcefulness, the upperclassmen who planned the party created every contraption, device, and game needed for the events. The 2004 Freshman Orientation Party was an excellent inaugural activity that both welcomed the first-year students and established the Stata Center as a hub for campus life. There is much more we’d like to share with you about the Stata Center and its programs, and we hope you will decide to come visit the building and its occupants “in action.” The enclosed pamphlet, “The Stata Center: A Self-Guided Tour,” can get you started. If you do choose to visit the Stata Center and MIT, please contact Lucy Miller, Director of Principal Gifts, at 617.253.3950 or rmiller@mit.edu, as Lucy can help arrange your visit to campus. We sincerely hope that you will decide to do so soon. As you can see, remarkable things have happened here already in a short time. More are certain to come. We’ll be in touch. Sincerely, Dr. Stephen Yablo W. Eric L. Grimson Department Head Bernard Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering Linguistics and Philosophy Acting Department Head Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

THE KISS

ContributorsJessica Banks (CSAIL G) and Daniel Paluska (MechE G)

Created with the Fotron2000, a collaboration with jackbackrack (CSAIL)

The Kiss

“The Kiss” is a light-portrait that demonstrates some of the subtleties of the Fotron2000, a photo booth housing a robotic portrait artist that paints with light. The robotic arm (a shoulder and elbow) inside the light-sealed photo booth holds LEDs in its “hand.” The arm sits three feet from a Polaroid camera that has been modified so its shutter can remain open for an arbitrary length of time. When the robot draws with LEDs in front of the camera (i.e., traces out contours from a digital image), light traces are recorded on the long-exposure film. Some areas of the resulting picture are brighter than others because of the viewing angles of the LEDs. This artifact was exploited in “The Kiss” to create a sense of motion.

The Fotron2000 was inspired by classic time-lapse nighttime highway photography, Photoshop’sGlowing Edges filter, and “drawing” with sparklers. “The Kiss” is a simple exploration of the ability of a robot and a computer to automate the creation of art. We developed the Fotron2000 because we were interested in providing people with a permanent record of their experience with interactive art as well as in engaging robotic technology in an interesting way. The robot provides us with precision capabilities beyond our own, thus allowing us to create in ways not possible without technological assistance. Despite the computer control, mechanical noise and the warm glow of the LEDs result in an organic effect hard to achieve with computer graphics.

Thanks to Larry Finnwelch and Don Mauchan at Polaroid, Jeff Weber, Aaron Edsinger, and Henry Kaufman, for their assistance with this project.

Jessica Banks, Daniel Paluska, and jackbackrack

The 2004-2005 Student Mural Competition was sponsored by the MIT Office of the Arts. Judges were selected from each of the following depart-ments: CSAIL, LIDS, Linguistics & Philosophy, and the Writing and Communications Center.

For questions about the mural, please contact the Office of the Arts at 617.253.8089 or via e-mail at artscoordinator@mit.edu.