Caroline A. Jones is a Professor of Art History at MIT, where her work delves into the intricate relationship between embodied experience, technology, and contemporary art. As an editor, she curates collections that explore how sensory perception intersects with technological advancements in the art world. Her critical insights offer readers fresh perspectives on visual culture, prompting a deeper understanding of how modern artistic practices engage with and shape our perception of the world. She encourages a more nuanced appreciation of the sensory and technological dimensions within art.
The Formation of the Nineteenth- and Twentieth-century Collections of the Harvard University Art Museums
Major works of Picasso, Gris, Beckmann, Brancusi, Matisse, Pollock, Kiefer on early collecting of modern art; enlivening text on art galleries, dealers, artists, critics.
In our digital age, "skin" and "control" evoke, respectively, a program's faceplate screen and the key in the bottom left corner of the keyboard. MIT-based media artist Chris Csikszentmihlyi calls up other, older technological references, to an airplane's exterior and a control panel, with two large-scale installations at New York's Location One. "Skin" is the partial fuselage of a Boeing 737, inside of which viewers can feel the vibrations of a plane in flight and hear the muffled conversations of passengers. "Control" is roughly modeled on panels used in Chernobyl's nuclear reactor, which a viewer can manipulate while also wondering what kind of control he gains by his interaction. The two projects provide a visceral understanding of our dependence on complex technologies and the vulnerability they engender.