The exhibition "Beyond Data-Driven Aesthetics," curated by MIT Architecture alumnus Alexandros Haridis and running until June 30, explores how computing has transformed into a medium for creative production and aesthetic judgment in architecture and applied arts. The exhibition integrates philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and design computation, translating algorithms, theories, and machine learning systems into physical installations and interactive visualizations.
Q: What inspired "Beyond Data-Driven Aesthetics," and what questions does it explore? A: The conceptual origins of the exhibition emerged from three intersecting lines of research. First, during my PhD in design and computation at MIT around 2022, I witnessed how advances in data-driven machine learning—such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion—were rapidly entering public discussions about creativity, aesthetic judgment, and design. Concurrently, my own research focused on aesthetic evaluation, revealing that many questions presented as "new" in relation to AI have a much longer history that dates back to the 20th century. For instance, the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project identified creation and evaluation processes as one of seven key dimensions of human intelligence that future AI research should address.
Second, the exhibition draws influence from design computation and shape grammars, examining the relationship between human insight and computation through rule-based methods rather than purely data-driven learning. Recent studies of aesthetic theories—drawing from figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Oscar Wilde—have been significant in exploring how philosophical and literary texts on aesthetic value reveal possibilities or limitations in contemporary digital computation and AI.
Lastly, the exhibition is motivated by the use of design, fabrication, and data visualization to interpret mathematical concepts, algorithms, and opaque machine learning systems. Researchers across disciplines are increasingly employing reconstruction and visualization techniques to make computational systems more tangible and interpretable.
Q: How do you translate research on computation and aesthetics into an exhibition? A: The exhibition asks what salient ideas in specific research papers or books can be captured and interpreted through design in a visual and experiential format. By employing software reconstruction, physical making, and data visualization, it transforms dense written sources filled with algorithmic ideas and mathematical formulas into spatial stories that include interaction, material form, and digital visualization.
The exhibition is organized around five thematic areas: Aesthetic Measure, Aesthetic Guidelines, Algorithmic Aesthetics, Aesthetic Appropriation, and Aesthetic Novelty. Each theme serves as a selective "window" into distinct computational approaches to aesthetic judgment from specific publications. For example, "measure" refers to mathematician George Birkhoff's work in the 1930s on quantifying aesthetic value mathematically, while "novelty" examines how the machine learning system AICAN judges generated images based on cognitive aesthetics theory.
Q: What questions are you hoping to explore next? A: "Beyond Data-Driven Aesthetics" functions as both a research exhibition and a platform for ongoing investigation into how computational systems engage in aesthetic judgment, generation, and transformation across architecture and applied arts. A central question is computational evaluation that transcends purely functional requirements, applicable to various design contexts, from buildings to everyday products. Many of these inquiries predate contemporary interests in computing and AI.
I am particularly interested in how these ideas can inform broader applications in the built environment, helping designers and engineers understand how computation—whether rule-based or data-driven—can positively affect human experience in the spaces and objects we inhabit. This also opens up questions about mechanizing "beauty" and how traditional research communication may evolve through spatial and visual formats.
Blogger's Review: This exhibition not only showcases the intersection of computation and art but also provokes profound reflections on traditional aesthetic judgments. As computational technologies advance, effectively integrating these tools into design and creative processes will be pivotal for future research.