Proceedings of the Media Architecture Biennale 2025 (MAB 25), Bangkok, Thailand — accepted for publication.

Abstract

Gaze to the Stars is a participatory public art installation that transforms the MIT Great Dome and its surrounding public realm into an interface for collective emotional storytelling. The project introduces an immersive pod, leveraging large language models and computer vision, to capture the unique eye movements and personal stories of 200 volunteers, reflecting their dreams, aspirations, and struggles. Their messages were embedded in close-up eye recordings using encoded Braille and projected onto the Dome, reclaiming this institutional landmark as a site for vulnerability, memory, and communal presence. Over three consecutive nights, the projections animated the MIT campus, and the Cambridge and Boston cityscape. Blending AI, participatory storytelling, and public art, the project is challenging traditional notions of public space by centering empathy as a tool for civic dialogue.

The work contributes to media architecture in several ways. First, it demonstrates architectural projection as an empathetic civic interface, where façades become conduits for consensual, vulnerable expression rather than instruments of authority. Second, it explores a reversal of the traditional uses of the gaze in media architecture: from surveillance and control to reciprocity and expression. Third, it introduces a method to translate personal and community stories into city-scale visibility, leveraging custom techniques such as a sensory pod for data collection, narrative encoding for public display, and post-projection visualization. And finally, it demonstrates how media architecture can resignify institutional icons, transforming them to reflect the collective stories of their communities.