GAZE TO THE STARS 2025, United States of America, Cambridge
Transforming MIT’s Great Dome into a canvas for collective emotional storytelling
Gaze to the Stars transforms MIT’s Great Dome into a living canvas of resilience, vulnerability, and shared human experience. Over three nights in March 2025, the eyes and stories of more than 200 participants—captured through an AI-guided sensory pod—were projected across the Dome and streamed worldwide. Each story, encoded in Braille and encoded into close-up portraits of the gaze, formed a mosaic of collective testimony. Blurring design, AI, and participatory art, the project reclaims watching itself—not as surveillance or control, but as an opening to vulnerability, care, and empathy. The Dome, once a static symbol of institutional knowledge, becomes a platform for civic storytelling and a monument to shared humanity.
What if architecture could feel, listen, and share our most intimate expressions of struggle and hope? Gaze to the Stars transforms MIT’s Great Dome, an iconic symbol of institutional knowledge, into a vehicle for empowering communities to share their stories and turn their eyes toward the city. Inspired by the motto per ardua ad astra—“through difficulties to the stars”—this project reimagines the Dome as a living canvas, reflecting not only the aspirations of those shaped by MIT, but also their resilience, vulnerability, and unspoken narratives of failure and transformation. Through a mosaic of gazes—lived experiences interwoven in civic sharing—the project asks whether watching itself can be reclaimed: not as surveillance or control, but as an opening toward vulnerability, care, and empathy. More than 200 participants entered a custom-built sensory pod where they shared dreams, fears, and longings in conversation with an AI voice embodied as the Dome itself. Their eye movements and spoken testimonies were recorded, with the summary of each story encoded in Braille and encoded with close-up video portraits of the participants’ eyes. Over three nights in March 2025, these visuals were projection-mapped across the 100-meter-wide Dome and livestreamed worldwide, transforming the building into a platform for civic storytelling—where audiences could decode the messages in real time. Extending beyond the live installation, an interactive data visualization on the project website reveals patterns and connections across these emotional testimonies, turning private affect into shared civic presence. By merging design, AI, and participatory art, Gaze to the Stars reclaims the gaze as an act of collective empathy, positioning architecture not as a static landmark, but as an active participant in human connection.
Details
Building or project owner : Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Architecture : William W. Bosworth (original architect, 1916); MIT Great Dome
Project artist/ concept/ design/ planning : Behnaz Farahi, Critical Matter Group (MIT Media Lab)
Structural engineering : N/A (existing historic structure of the building; no modifications or structural work developed for this project)
Facade design : N/A (existing historic facade of the building; no modifications or facade work developed for this project beyond the projection)
Light design : Critical Matter Group, Agoos D-zines LLC, and AVFX
Technical layout light : Agoos D-zines LLC, and AVFX
Display content/ visuals/ showreel : Critical Matter Group (MIT Media Lab)
Light hardware (LED hardware) : Agoos D-zines LLC, and AVFX
Lighting control software : MadMapper by GarageCube (projection warping and alignment), Blender by Blender Foundation (sequencing), Unity by Unity Technologies (Braille particle encoding)
Project co-ordination : MIT Critical Matter Group, with support from MIT Artfinity Festival
Interaction design/ programming : Critical Matter Group (pod design, AI dialogue, iris tracking, Unity particle system)
Project sponsor/ support : MIT Artfinity Festival; MIT Media Lab
Pixel or other basic module/ elements : N/A (projection mapping rather than modular pixel hardware)
Descriptions
Facade type and geometry (structure) : The MIT Great Dome, completed in 1916, is a neoclassical landmark measuring 100 m wide and 54 m tall. Its smooth semi-spherical concrete dome, resting on a classical colonnade, offered a continuous curved surface ideal for projection mapping. The geometry amplified the circular iris motifs of the project while its monumental scale transformed individual eyes into luminous urban icons. A high-resolution 3D scan of the façade provided the digital twin for precise calibration.
Kind of light creation : Light was created through large-scale projection rather than embedded fixtures. Two Panasonic PT-RQ35K 4K laser projectors (30,500 lumens each) were mounted side by side on a scissor lift in the open court directly in front of the Dome, at +25′ elevation. Their beams crossed a 352′ throw distance, covering the 54 m semi-spherical façade in a uniform, high-intensity light field. The pairing of architectural monument and cutting-edge projection created a luminous canvas that animated the skyline.
Resolution and transmitting behaviour : Content was produced in native 4K and transmitted through a 300′ feeder cable from a production tent at the lawn’s edge. The Dome’s curved geometry required non-planar calibration, achieved through a digital twin and finalized on site with edge blending. This ensured crisp alignment of the 4K imagery with the façade, so that intricate iris details and Braille-encoded particle fields remained legible from close range while retaining clarity across the city skyline.
Pixel distance : Effective resolution corresponded to approx. 10–15 cm pixel spacing when mapped onto the 54 m dome surface, sufficient for both fine-grain iris details and large-scale urban legibility.
Luminace : The dual projectors delivered over 60,000 lumens of output, producing bright, uniform coverage across the Dome’s curved façade. The MIT campus is typically dark at night and not residential, allowing the projection’s glowing eye to dominate the skyline without disturbing neighbors. This ensured high contrast and exceptional visibility, with details remaining clear even from across the Charles River and surrounding cityscape
Urban situation : The Dome sits in front of a wide open lawn directly facing the Charles River, with uninterrupted sightlines across Boston and Cambridge. Audiences gathered on the lawn at MIT and along the riverbanks, witnessing the Dome become a luminous beacon of collective stories. Positioned on the city’s edge, the installation functioned both as an intimate campus gathering and as a civic-scale act of storytelling, visible across the metropolitan skyline.
Description of showreel : The showreel cycled through a sequence of 200 participants’ eyes. Each began with a close-up where Braille-encoded narratives shimmered around the pupil in fine detail. After 10s seconds, the perspective widened into a constellation of many eyes mapped across the Dome, before zoomed-in, focusing on the next individual gaze. This rhythm of zooming in and out created a continuous interplay between singular and collective presence. Subtle animations—blinks, iris shifts, particle swirls—responded to recorded eye movements, giving the projections a living quality. Together, the reel transformed the Dome into a luminous monument of shared human stories.
Participatory architecture & urban interaction
Mediacredits
Critical Matter Group
Critical Matter Group
Critical Matter Group
Critical Matter Group
Critical Matter Group
MIT Media Lab, Critical Matter Group
Critical Matter Group