CIRCA:MIT Media Lab
From CIRCA
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology located in Cambridge Massachusetts. A part of the University's School of Architecture and Planning, the MIT Media Lab is an interdisciplinary research group dedicated to investigating the potential uses and effects of technology, multimedia, and design. Currently, there are over 170 researchers at the Media Lab, including 28 permanent faculty and principle investigators, working on over 350 projects. Over 70 sponsors fund the Lab's annual $35 million budget.
Opened in 1985 as the brain child of professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT president Jerome Wiesner, the lab occupied the specially designed Wiesner building on the University's main campus. Initially, the Media Lab had a 10 year mission exploring the uses and implications of the technologies of the emerging "digital revolution". Projects sponsored under this mandate include research into holography, electronic music, and cognition and learning. After its first decade, the lab shifted its focus to investigating digital technologies outside of the traditional "box" computer. Areas of research during this time included novel approaches to children's education, wireless communication, and new forms of artistic expression.
After it's 20th anniversary the MIT Media Lab has begun to its work on "human adaptability", with areas of research ranging from Alzheimer's treatments to new methods for Human Computer Interaction. In 2009, the Media Lab opened a six story connected expansion of the Wiesner building to form the MIT Media Lab Complex.
Facility
The Media Lab is currently housed in a 163 000 square foot six story complex, opened in 2009. The building houses laboratory, office, and meeting space as well as the List Visual Arts Centre, The School of Architecture and Planning's Programme in Art, Culture, and Technology, the Comparative Media Studies Programme, as well as the Okawa Centre for Future Children.
