The Critical Matter Group explores the intersection of design, technology, and critical inquiry, questioning how matter can become expressive and societally meaningful. They combine science, technology, arts, and humanities to create material innovation with social impact. Sergio Mutis's research focuses on distributed robotic assembly and spatial resilience, aiming to build more adaptive, self-organizing architectural systems inspired by living systems like ants. Haolei Zhang's work explores the role of AI, particularly in companionship AI for long-distance relationships, emphasizing how AI can be designed to foster comfort and engagement while acknowledging its artificial identity. The "Gaze to the Stars" project, a participatory public art installation at MIT, transformed the MIT dome into a vessel for community storytelling by projecting close-up videos of 200 participants' eyes, each encoded with their personal stories summarized by AI. The project also included an interactive website mapping the eyes onto a virtual dome, connected by shared themes, to explore patterns of connection within the MIT community. The AI system for the "Gaze to the Stars" experience was designed with conversational interactions based on Marvin Minsky's levels of thinking, exploring topics like feelings, struggles, longing, and dreams. The AI persona was designed as an "immortal goldenness," wise, kind, and encouraging, to foster trust and engagement with participants.