Beyond Data Driven Aesthetics

Digital Reconstruction and Public Communication of Aesthetic Systems in Architecture and the Applied Arts

Creative Direction and Curation: Alexandros Haridis
April-August 2026
MIT Keller Gallery, Cambridge, MA

Official Website and Documentation:
aestheticsbeyonddata.com/

At the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Project, “creation” – “evaluation” processes were identified as one of seven key aspects of human intelligence that future AI research must address. Seven decades later, AI systems mimic creation-evaluation processes across architecture, art, design, and scientific discovery. Beyond Data-Driven Aesthetics is a cross-generational and cross-disciplinary examination of academic and industry efforts in the United States that transformed computing and AI into a medium for creative expression and judgment. Through a physical multimedia exhibition, it presents original digital reconstructions and critical analyses of the 20th- and early 21st-century rise and proliferation of creation-evaluation systems. The exhibition invites visitors on a chronological journey of how mathematicians, artists, architects, and computer scientists introduced new visual and logical languages, exploring whether calculation – by hand or by programming digital computers – can both answer traditional questions of aesthetics (i.e., the nature of creating or judging) and expand the capabilities of human creators.

MIT Department of Architecture Press Release

Credits

This exhibition has been realized with the support of institutional partners, collaborating organizations, student contributors, and external fabrication and production services. For more details, please visit the official project page: https://aestheticsbeyonddata.com/beyond-data