MIT Center for Art, Science and Technology Visiting Artist Jeanette Andrews premieres
a site-specific performance exploring belief polarization and perception.
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Friday, October 3, 2025 / 5 pm
Saturday, October 4, 2025 / 3 pm
MIT Kresge Little Theater, Building W16
48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
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Sole showing of this live performance, installation, film and discussion series
that has been in development for two years.
Only 90 total public tickets to be released.
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What will you believe? This piece explores the cognitive science of belief polarization and was informed by research in collaboration with MIT Faculty members Graham Jones and Arvind Satyanarayan. The Attestation invites audiences to interrogate their perceptions, reflect on the extreme delicacy of belief, examine how we form trust and scrutiny, and will culminate in a twist ending designed solely for the in-person experience.
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A Note from the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology
Selected as a MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) Visiting Artist in 2023, Andrews has furthered her innovative practice while bringing The Attestation to life. At its center, magic and illusion are designed to seemingly influence events, while CAST’s support grounds the work in a systematic study of the structures and behaviors of the physical world, through the lens of illusion. The result is an unforgettable piece that explores the cognitive science of belief polarization itself. This piece, developed in collaboration with Professor of Anthropology Graham Jones and Associate Professor of Computer Science Arvind Satyanarayan, will mark Andrews’ MIT CAST debut. Professors Satyanarayan and Jones invited Andrews to collaborate on their research on interpretation in an era of misinformation. Performance magic is an ideal medium to experiment with this concept: it carefully guides attention and conceals and reveals underlying information to orchestrate a desired perception of reality.
Still and clip from "The Attestation: A Viewer's Guide." Image: Courtesy of the artist, Jeanette Andrews. Cinematographer: Ari Isenberg