This week, all eyes will be on the MIT campus — in more ways than one. As part of Artfinity , MIT’s festival for the arts, the MIT Dome will be transformed into an eye.
The “Gaze to the Stars” installation uses videos of people’s eyes looking skyward, and curious passersby can scan the dome to hear participants’ stories.
“We’re really excited about the possibility of bringing the community of MIT together,” Behnaz Farahi, a professor at the MIT Media Lab, told The Culture Show host Jared Bowen, “and the question was how the community in MIT and beyond can get the sense of community, the sense of unity, the sense of connectedness.”
For this installation, Farahi’s team developed a pod where people could share their stories with the assistance of an AI guide. The team spent two weeks capturing participants’ stories and collecting images of their irises. Those stories were each transcribed and encoded into an image of the storyteller’s iris, allowing passersby to scan the dome with their phone camera and follow the link to that individual’s story.
“You always look at the stars when you’re looking for the future, but also sometimes you’re desperate, you’re in a state of despair and you’re looking up for help, and you’re looking at the sky, looking for some energy from the other world in a way to help you to move forward in your life,” Farahi said. “So star gazing is something that we all do. If you’re dreaming about a possible future or are longing for something from the past … we are looking at the stars.”
The illumination happens March 12-14, coinciding with the total lunar eclipse . On March 13, you can catch Farahi at the MIT Museum in conversation with Michael John Gorman, the director of the museum, as part of their After Dark + Artfinity programming.
