MIT MEDIA LAB

TheMIT

Media

theMassachusetts

Labis
Institute

an

interdisciplinary
of

research

Technologydevoted

to

laboratory

at

projects

at

theconvergenceoftechnology,multimedia,sciences,artanddesign.

Staff

and

students have backgrounds ranging from electrical engineering and computer

science to sociology and music and others.
Was founded by MIT ProfessorNicholas Negroponteand former MIT
PresidentJerome Wiesnerand opened its doors in theWiesner Building(designed
byI. M. Pei) (also known as Building E15) at MIT in 1985. It grew out of the work of
MITs Architecture Machine Group, and remains within theMIT School of
Architecture and Planning.

Cesar A. Hidalgo
Csar A. Hidalgo is an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab,
and

faculty

associate

at

Harvard

University's

Center

for

International Development. Before joining MIT, Hidalgo was an

adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy
School of Government, and a research fellow at Harvard's Center
for International Development.

Hidalgo's work focuses on improving the understanding of systems

by using and developing concepts of complexity, evolution, and
network science; his goal is to help improve understanding of the
evolution of prosperity in order to help develop industrial policies
that can help countries raise the living standards of their citizens.
His areas of application include economic development, systems
biology, and social systems.

Hidalgo is also a graphic-art enthusiast and has published and

exhibited artwork that uses data collected originally for scientific
purposes. A native of Santiago de Chile, Hidalgo holds a PhD in
physics from the University of Notre Dame and a bachelor's degree
in physics from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile. With
Ricardo Hausmann et al., he is co-author ofThe Atlas of Economic
Complexity(2011). His most recent book isWhy Information
Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies(Basic
Books, 2015).

The "Classic" Product Space

This illustrations show newer and more refined versions of

images of the Product Space published in Science in 2007

Rankings

This artwork recycles images created originally for macroeconomic

complexity rankings that can be found in their original form in
Hidalgo and Haussman, PNAS (2009) and in Hidalgo, CID Working Paper

Trajectories
This artwork was done for Gonzalez MC,CA Hidalgo, A-L
Barabasi Nature 2008. It shows the trajectories of
thousands of users in the background and the
trajectory of an individual user highlighted on the
foreground.