SPOTLIGHT
Art for the Age of
the Anthropocene
Tomás Saraceno’s work with social spiders,
their webs, and the wind
By Sharon Lacey
Guest Contributor
When Tomás Saraceno first came to Mas-
sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as
a Visiting Artist in 2012, he met with the late
Otto Piene, who was then Professor Emeritus
of Visual Design and the second director of the
influential Center for Advanced Visual Studies, founded in 1967. As Saraceno fondly recalls,
their bond was not based solely on a creative
interest in sky art, but also they shared a similar
spirit in their approach to making work; Saraceno says he felt a kinship with Piene’s immersion
in the MIT community and his endless curiosity about the research being done around hi