From Data to Art

Mauro Martino PhD

Mauro Martino is a scientist and artist, a pioneer in AI Art and Data Art since 2008. He uses artificial intelligence to explore and enhance understanding of the world, transforming complex information into visual experiences that reveal hidden patterns.

His groundbreaking projects include:

• AI Portraits (2018): the first generative AI web experience to go viral worldwide, with over 8 million visitors per day
• Forma Fluens (2017): analysis of 2.5 billion drawings revealing how different cultures shape the way we think and structure concepts
• 150 Years of Nature (2020): project commissioned by the world's most prestigious scientific journal to celebrate its 150 years of history
• Atomic Reverberations (2025): bronze sculptures that materialize AI into tangible art, permanently installed at MIT campus in Cambridge

Originally from Italy, Mauro founded and directs the Visual AI Lab at IBM Research and MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. He is a Professor of Practice at Northeastern University.

His work has been featured in BBC, Scientific American, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Der Spiegel, Le Figaro, Corriere della Sera, National Geographic, Popular Science, Wired, and many others. His work also appears in textbooks about AI Art and Data Visualization: Beyond Matter, Within Space by Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás, Possible Futures: Art scenarios and artificial intelligence by Rebecca Pedrazzi, Data Visualization by Andy Kirk, The Truthful Art by Alberto Cairo, The Best American Infographics 2015 and 2016 editions, and Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival by Paola Antonelli. His research is published in Nature, Science, PNAS, Nature Communications, and Nature Physics.

He was formerly an Assistant Research Professor at Northeastern University working with Albert-László Barabási at the Center for Complex Network Research and with David Lazer at IQSS Harvard. Previously, he was a research affiliate at MIT SENSEable City Lab with Carlo Ratti, while earning a PhD in Design and Technologies at Politecnico di Milano.