Media Lab 25th Anniversary
At this time of year the folks at the Media Lab usually demo the things they’re working on to the sponsors. This year the fall sponsor meeting was taken to the next level by combining it with a celebration of the Media Lab’s 25th anniversary. It’s been a bit of a zoo around the lab getting ready, but it was also a lot of fun. One of the best parts was getting to see former students and hear what they’ve been doing since leaving the lab.
In addition to the normal events they hosted a great anniversary party in the new building last night. In true Media Lab fashion it was not like any other anniversary party you’ve been to. The folks from Harmonix (Media Lab alums), brought over the next version of Rock Band and an upcoming game called Dance Central for everyone to play, with the action on 40 foot screens. The robot above would play marimba along with anyone playing the adjacent keyboard. It was very expressive for a robot, and we thought it needed a cool hat, maybe a beret. Punchdrunk (the theatre company who did Sleep No More last year) put on an experience in the basement which had everyone talking.
We also enjoyed something called the Annotation Station, where movies and photos from the whole history of the Lab were available to browse, and you could annotate them with your memories. Since the Media Lab was formed from groups that we were involved with as undergraduates (before there was a Media Lab), we enjoyed some of the really old movies of people we knew back then.
If you’d like to hear more about the anniversary, and the things that are going on at the Lab, you can check out these interviews by John Hockenberry on the Takeaway:
