SUBJECTS NOT OBJECTS

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prompts. But the four plinths of Lobby 7 have not remained empty. Rather, they have hosted performances, presentations, hacks, and acts of social congregation. Our proposal encourages these and other temporary acts in celebration of MIT’s history and community.The plinths should not become pedestals for static objects, but continue their relevance as platforms for dynamic subjects.

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SUBJECTS NOT OBJECTS continues the use of Lobby 7’s plinths for assembly and action. We pro-

The 1975 performance Three Period Pieces, by CAVS artists Otto Piene and Paul Earls, repurposed Lobby 7’s plinths as speaker stands.

12/7

Test tube menorah is lit to celebrate Hanukah (photo Rabbi Michelle Fisher).

2/16

Lobby 7 Design Competition first round ends. SUBJECTS NOT OBJECTS proposes that the plinths continue their relevance not as pedestals for static objects, but as platforms for dynamic subjects.

purchase-ready infrastructural amenities, from a simple stepladder to more expansive safety devices. The infrastructural support will be developed through conversations with project producers and MIT facilities advisors.

12/6

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1992’s hack, “The Cathedral of Our Lady of the All-Night Tool,” introduced faux stained glass overlays over the Lobby’s double-height windows and used the plinths as ersatz altars for gilded computer monitors as idols.

pose to produce re-stagings of past occupations, to facilitate new temporary actions a commissioning The Lobby 7 Design Competition through 11h00. Hitchhiker’s Guide Library body, and to provide guiderequests proposals to fill the Lobby 7 meets for a walking tour of all lines for theTour ongoing use of Lobby 7’s plinths as Libraries. sites plinths. the MIT of agency and expression. SUBJECTS NOT OBJECTS will introduce flexible,

2010 201 1

11/5

Today, the plinths are highly desired places for sitting, working, and observing the Lobby.

1/15 “This building contains too much jargon and may need simplification or further explanation” (photo Emad Taliep).

2/24

Winter Break in Lobby 7. Hot cocoa, cider, and donuts surround the balconies. Hungry students line up.

2/1 Registration day. Resonance a capella group sings using plinths for “resonance” backdrop.

2/26

16h20. “MIThenge,” sun shines through lobby and aligns with infinite corridor (photo John S. Y. Lee).

1/14 12h17. Princess Peach is kidnapped during her own wedding by Bowser, initiating the 2011 Mystery Hunt.

2/11

SUBJECTS N O T OBJECTS

WMBR Pre-Dance Party Party!

3/1

@microkubo

Full chorus singing Katy Perry in lobby, and guy practicing his pop-locking at bus stop. Strange days here... #seenatMIT

Noon. Blimp floats around lobby advertising engineering class: “Shape the future.”

3/5 11h00. HSSB event, high school students race Lego (TM) constructions down strings stretched from the 2nd and 3rd floor balconies.

23h30. Tweeted: Six girls sing Kate Perry’s “Teenage Dream” leaning against one of the plinths.

3/12 17h30. Students offer free hugs at East plinth. One student climbs on North plinth for the first time. Another student reclines on West plinth, listening to her earphones.

“Who So Pulleth Out This Sword of this Stone and Anvil is the Rightwise Born Chancellor of The Institute.”

12h00. MIT welcomes Chancellor Eric Grimson (photo Yuanyu Chen).

4/6 SUBJECTS NOT OBJECTS presents two new commissioned works: Composer Ben Houge’s A Reading From Lobby 7 acoustically remixes the lobby’s history, and artist Sarah Witt’s Wait serves deconstructed delicacies to an eager crowd of guests and passers-by.

Fill in the blank.

This calendar is part of SUBJECTS NOT OBJECTS, a proposal for MIT’s Lobby 7 Design Competition 2011. The proposal is featured with other finalists in an exhibition on view at MIT’s Wolk Gallery from April 15 to May 15, 2011 (photo 1983 Ping-pong hack courtesy MIT Museum).

1937 William Welles Bosworth’s sketch of the lobby and its plinths. He will lament the absence of “the big idea of sculpture” from the Rogers Building in his letters throughout the 1960s (image MIT Museum, Bosworth letters MIT Archive).

1939 “By far the largest and most important construction completed in the past year is the new Rogers Building,” proclaims the 1939 Technique, MIT’s yearbook.

1975 Grace Gordon-Collins’s artwork Electra simulates the northern lights from a Lobby 7 plinth, as part of “The Weather Show” (photo the artist).

1937 2010 2002 January 9. Skylight open and lit for the first time since World War II (photo Madcoverboy, Wikipedia).

2007 October 3. Vigil for Burma outside the lobby (photo Frank Hebbert).

1967 November 4. Hans Haacke’s balloons fill Lobby, “supported by Bernoulli” says MIT’s newspaper The Tech (photo Mike Venturino - The Tech).

1970 January 15: Guerrilla theater in the lobby protests Mike Albert’s expulsion for his part in October ‘69 demonstration. Albert later readmitted in 1971 (photo The Tech Jan. 20, 1970).

1979 “The Food Show” installed in Lobby 7, including a giant inflated apple with a slide, piles of fruit, and a net hanging over the lobby. Julia Child gives a public presentation in the lobby (image outraged letters to the Tech, 25 April 1975).

1985 October 31. Halloween concert with over eighty costumed musicians including soloists playing from second floor balconies.

2002 November 13. The four plinths are adorned with “Random Hall milk, Transparent Horizons, the Stata Center, and a Cthulu-ish tentacled thing crawling out of a manhole installed into one of the pedestals”— presumably related to the APO charity fundraiser “Ugliest Manifestation On Campus” (MIT Hack Gallery).

2008 January. Annual Puzzle Hunt gets under way (photo nonelvis, flickr).

December 1. Dance marathon raises money for leukemia research (photo John O. Borland - The Tech)

1992 October 30. The Cathedral of our Lady of the All-Night Tool takes over the lobby. Faux-stained glass overlays cover windows. Plinths become ersatz altars (photo Terri Matsakis).

2003 June 25. Domes in mirror are closer than they appear (photo Andre DeHon).

1970 Architecture professor Maurice Smith and students build staircase in the lobby (photo Maurice Smith).

1979 Student appears as a sculpture, animating Bosworth’s vision (photo Calvin Campbell).

1994 February 11. Annual celebration of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. with traditional silent march from Lobby 7 to Kresge Auditorium. Coretta Scott King gives keynote speech (photo Elemental MIT).

2004 May 20, 12h15. Proposal banner drops during finals week (photo Mitra Lohrasbpour).

December. Midnight Bach concert by the MIT Chamber Players, and accompanied by members of the MIT Choral Society and friends (photo Elemental MIT).

1996 May 6. The Garden in the Machine turns the lobby into a wheatfield. Installation by Scott Schiamberg ‘93. Hackers provide a scarecrow and a cow that oversee the field from the plinths (photo Donna Coveney).

2005 March. Following Larry Summers’ derogatory remarks about women in science, a banner is installed in the lobby , reading “wise@harvard/you are welcome here.”

2008 February. The Knights of the Lambda Calculus mourn the end of the introductory computer science class 6.001 (photo Eric Schmiedl).

1974 Son of Balloon Carpet by Otto Piene floats over Lobby 7.

1980 January. First Annual MIT IAP Mystery Hunt assembles in the lobby convened by Brad Schaefer (image Hunt archives).

1999 February 4. “Reflections,” an installation in honor of Martin Luther King Jr., installed in the lobby. Two low silver barriers across the lobby evoke the reflecting pool in Washington, DC. Photographs from the “I Have a Dream” speech hang over each entrance. Two gospel groups perform.

2006 December 4. Late night circle dance (photo Frank Hebbert).

2009 April 14. CPW ‘08 SC: Marching Band Tour of Campus. The tour traverses the infinite corridor and ends at President Susan Hockfield’s house (photo Michael Snively).

December 18. Watching The Wizard of Oz and having some snacks in Lobby 7 (photo Rachel Hadiashar).

September. Twenty-one people participate in an unfruitful attempt to break the “mattress dominoes” world record (photo Quentin Smith ‘10).

1975 Three Period Pieces, by CAVS artists Otto Piene and Paul Earls. (image Roger N. Goldstein).

1983 January. Ping-pong balls rain inside Lobby 7. Nobody slips (photo MIT Museum).

2001 March 23. Excavation team uncovers a large monolith on the last day of classes before Spring Break (photo Andre DeHon).

2007 May 15. Fine dining (photo Frank Hebbert).

“The Weather Show,” Otto Piene and CAVS (image Grace Gordon-Collins)

1984 August 25 - 30. A modified inscription around Lobby 7 reads “Established for Advancement and Development of Science its Application to Industry the Arts Entertainment and Hacking.” Security called to scene initially unable to discern alteration. Hack removed by MIT’s Confined Rescue Team who rappel from the ledge instead of scheduled practice session.

SUBJECTS N O T OBJECTS

2007 June 27. Professor Herbert Einstein and his capstone Civil Engineering Design class test the bridges they built in Lobby 7 by walking across them.

2010 May 14. The Chorallaries perform some MIT classics.