Lesser-known hacks at MIT

Students decided to add their own "artwork" to an exhibit at MIT's modern art museum.  They upended a trash can and put a cafeteria tray on top, with a tongue-in-cheek description.  It stayed there for two weeks before anyone noticed that it wasn't part of the actual exhibit.

The above hack "No Knife" artwork inspired a serious artist to make the following artwork that is prominently featured in the national modern art museum of Argentina.  If you're ever in Buenos Aires, visit the MALBA museum and see how an MIT hack turned into a national treasure artwork.  To give the Argentinian artist credit, instead of leaving out the knife, he left out the spoon instead.

MIT students decided to adorn the statue of John Harvard with an MIT class ring.  It stayed on for weeks until the Harvard students decrypted the instructions to synthesize the solvent to remove the glue holding the ring onto the statue without damaging it.

The Stata Center is a bizarre building designed by noted architect Frank Gehry.  To get from one end of the second floor of the building to the other side, you have to go down a staircase, hike across the building, then take another staircase back up again.  The detour is annoying, inspiring a student to post this sign. 

Want to learn more about MIT's hacking culture?  Read the article "Hackito Ergo Sum" by a retired MIT professor, or find one of these out-of-print books.

Nightwork: a History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT, dated 2003, by T.F. Peterson, official MIT historian

Is This the Way to Baker House by Ira Haverson, dated 1996

Journal of the Institute for Hacks, Tomfoolery & Pranks at MIT, by Brian Leibowitz, dated 1990