Statement of the Research Topic and Rationale for the Research Introduction As a visual artist, I am captivated by the intricate interconnections within the world, a fascination that has increasingly defined my creative practice. Originally trained in traditional media like painting, printmaking, and sculpture, my practice evolved following my Honours research in 2022. This work explored the aesthetic effects of fractal patterns, particularly those with midrange complexities found in nature, which research suggests can reduce stress and enhance focus (Spehar et al., 2015; Taylor, 2016). Engaging with neuroaesthetics, part of our neurological tool kit, one we share with other animals (Nadal & Cela-Conde 2022, p.9) and concepts like ‘fractal fluency,’ I realised that our responses to these patterns reflect our evolutionary connection to the world. This research led me to experiment with digital media, producing Adjacent (2022), an interactive projection that responded to audience movement with branching light forms. My exploration of new media has evolved, driven by critical theories of new materialism, and inspired by thinkers like Karen Barad and Vicky Kirby, who challenge traditional views of humans as distinct from the nonhuman world. Barad’s concept of intra-action—that entities form and reshape through their relationships—finds resonance in the ideas of art theorist Jack Burnham. Burnham (1967, p. 369) suggests that the processes of life take shape within and through the systems they inhabit and that machines will develop life-like processes as integral parts of those systems. These ideas have become a foundation for my practice, inspiring me to explore the complex intra-actions between humans and other life forms. New media art, particularly digital art, and art robots has become an important method with which to investigate how these intra-connected relationships might be reimagined through creative practice. New media art, as Simon Biggs describes, encompasses emerging tools and systems that enable artists to reflect on and repurpose contemporary technologies (Biggs, 2009). This practice offers unique possibilities for expressing complex ecological and philosophical concepts. By using digital modelling, 3D printing, and interactive systems, I aim to create speculative artworks that explore human and nonhuman intra-actions, challenging viewers to see themselves as part of, rather than separate from, a larger interconnected world. Humans exist within a richly populated nonhuman world, one full of organisms with diverse perceptual and cognitive systems. Research into simple organisms—such as slime moulds that display social behaviour, or microbes that respond chemically to their surroundings—reveals how differently life forms experience and interact with the world (Godfrey-Smith, 2016; Dalziel, 2017). These perspectives inspire this research, prompting consideration of how art might help de-centre human viewers, positioning them within an ecosystem rather than above it. Philosopher Thomas Nagel notes that any conscious experience is inherently subjective (Nagel, 1974), and artists like Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby extend this idea by asking how humans might be perceived from a nonhuman perspective. They encourage viewers to consider the impact human actions have on other species, and a world where human presence is just one of many in a shared environment.. The nonhuman can experience to world through different sensory modalities. To these senses what is invisible to us may be tangible, while what seems solid to us could be imperceptible to other creatures. My work builds on this, aiming to explore these complex, often invisible, interactions and perceptions. Post- humanism and consideration of the non-human, or the ‘non-human turn,’ has been an important philosophical movement. Explored by theorists like Richard Grusin and Donna Haraway, it suggests that the notion of independent organisms, cannot be supported by biology or philosophy, but rather that all are inta-connected (Haraway 2016, p.33). This perspective challenges traditional notions of human centrality, and explores the blurred boundaries between humans, technology, and other species. Despite this, ideas of human exceptionalism—the belief that humans are inherently distinct and superior to other species—and Cartesian dualities, which separate mind from body and human from non-human, continue to persist (Grusin, 2015, p.10). The exploitation of both living and non-living ‘resources’ remains prevalent (Jackson, 2013, p.673). The development of artificial life and intelligence introduces new ethical questions about autonomy and the inherent value of nonhuman lives that includes machine lives. In the Anthropocene era, characterized by climate change and mass species extinction, Susan Ballard argues that art can contribute to, rather than merely reflect, our understanding of the world and the ongoing effect of humans and the multiple life forms with whom we share the planet (Ballard, 2021 p.9). This research project seeks to use creative practice to reveal the nonhuman, not as passive subjects but as active participants, intra-active ‘kin’in this shared world (Haraway2016, p.101). Project Overview This project investigates how speculative artworks, such as art robots, may reveal new insights into human and nonhuman intra-actions, a term coined by Karen Barad (2007, p. 33). By combining digital art and interactive installations, it explores de-centring the human viewer, positioning them as a minority among diverse nonhuman entities. Artist and ethologist Arnaud Gerspacher argues that the experimental nature of art, with its ability to embrace contradictions and broader truths, complements scientific knowledge in understanding nonhuman life (Gerspacher, 2022). This project seeks to engage viewers in a reflective experience that challenges human-centred perspectives, drawing attention to the intricate, often overlooked, relationships that shape our world. Project Aims This research project is two-fold: •Exploring Intra-Active Relationships: Through creative practice, the project examines scientific and philosophical ideas that reveal human/nonhuman intraconnections, aiming to reframe humans as one part of a complex ecosystem. Central to this exploration are the perceptual and cognitive systems of simple organisms, expressed through digital art and interactive robots. •Experimenting with New Media Tools and Systems: This research will utilise new media technologies, including digital modelling, 3D printing, and interactive electronics, to bring the intra-active world to life. These tools will serve as a medium to interpret and convey nonhuman perspectives, creating an immersive experience for the viewer. The research will culminate in a presentation consisting of 70% creative artwork and 30% written exegesis. By inviting the audience to encounter speculative life forms this project aims to provoke reflection on the interdependent nature of our world. Review This research is driven by a curiosity about the intra-connectedness of life forms and the intricate systems of perception and cognition that link them. It draws on insights from multidisciplinary science and philosophy, to explore contemporary art informed by post-humanism. This study uses new media art—specifically digital art and art robots—to explore these connections. New media art can be two- or three-dimensional, interactive, virtual, or expressed through code. This diversity makes it ideal for exploring complex themes that bridge art, technology, and biology. Jack Burnhan suggests that the overall system which produces and sustains life is the same system which will produce and sustain machines. The only difference will be the machines will draw on that system to different degrees (Burnham 1967, p.369). This literature review traces key ideas, theories, and artworks that inform the development of this research. It will focus on three interconnected themes: nonhuman perception and cognition, post-human perspectives in contemporary sculpture, and the role of art robots in revealing new forms of interactivity and understanding. Senses and Sensors The nonhuman world is filled with entities that interact with their surroundings in ways we are only beginning to understand. This project begins with a scientific and theoretical exploration of how simple life forms perceive, think, and respond to stimuli. Sensation and perception are foundational to an organism’s interaction with its environment, shaping its behaviour and, ultimately, its survival. The evolution of the mechanisms of perception and cognition in living organisms corresponds with the evolution of living organisms themselves, suggests biologist and philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith, and asks ‘is all life cognitive?’ (2016, p.776). Godfrey-Smith enlists microbes as an example. A receptor, or a complex of receptors, spans the cell membrane and relates to some environmental cue, this gives rise to chemical changes in the cell, which triggers an adaptive response of some kind. Many bacteria, have hundreds of these devices. They sense their world and, depending on what is happening in their world, then respond in different ways (Godfrey-Smith 2017). Organisms, through simple receptor systems, respond adaptively to environmental cues, raising questions about the foundations of perception and intelligence. This concept forms a basis for creative exploration in this research, inspiring digital and robotic art techniques that mimic or reinterpret these mechanisms. The first systems studied to enable bacterial behaviour were what are known as ‘two components’ systems. This is the basis of early examples of robotic art constructed in the 1950s by the neurophysiologist Walter Grey. The ‘tortoises’ were simple robots that could detect different intensities of light and navigate around obstacles in their path. Grey was interested in the behaviour possible for a creature with a brain having only two cells (Gomi 2001, p.10). They revealed that seemingly complex and useful external behaviour patterns, the appearance of thought and even life, can be produced by extremely simple internal processes, a concept essential to this research’s design of art robots that, while simple, will reveal complex patterns of interaction and perception. As an organism navigates its environment, its intentional actions shape its perceptions, which, in turn, guide its actions. Philosopher Susan Hurley suggests we should not over-intellectualise the concept of having a mind (Hurley 2003, p.231). This idea applies to both humans and nonhumans. Self-awareness from a particular viewpoint can be conceptual, as suggested by phenomenology, but it doesn't have to be. The organism can practically, even if not theoretically, recognise the connections between its perceptions and intentions, using this understanding intelligently to meet its needs (Hurley 2003, p.233). A cognitive system is one capable of learning, according to biologists Simona Ginsberg and Eva Jablonka (2021, p.1). This can encompass single-celled organisms but also individual cells within multicellular organisms. It also includes both neural and non-neural multicellular organisms like plants and fungi. Trees, vascular plants, not only learn but also function as communicative and social organisms. Plant neurobiologists Frantisek Baluska and Stefano Mancuso (2021, p.2) find that trees often engage in symbiotic relationships with fungi and bacteria. Systems of perception and cognition clearly exist within the nonhuman organisms of the world as they do within the human. It is the difference in those systems, that they are so foreign to humans that we are unable to imagine a world experienced by those perceptions or even recognise this as perception, that hinders humans from identifying with much that is nonhuman. Philosopher Thomas Nagel (1974, p.437) argues that every subjective experience is tied to a single point of view. Because of this it is impossible to consider any conscious experience as fully "objective" or universally shared. In other words, consciousness is always subjective, as it is shaped by the unique perspective of the individual. This is an area of interest for artist-designers Dunne and Raby (2023). They explore the ‘point of view’ of the nonhuman and imagine how the human might be perceived. Human breath may be experienced as a chemical trail and a footfall as waves of vibration through the soil. In their essay Treading Lightly in a World of Many Worlds (2023) and artwork Designs for a World of Many Worlds: After the Festival (2023) they explore the implications of biologist Von Uexküll’s (2010) concept of an umwelt, first published in 1934, emphasising the need to reconsider what it means to be human in relation to nonhuman worlds. This requires acknowledging that these worlds operate through different sensory modalities—such as olfactory, electrical, seismic, magnetic, and auditory. In these non-human worlds, what is invisible to humans may be tangible, while what seems solid to humans could be imperceptible to other creatures. This idea resonates with the research’s aim to create an assemblage of robots exhibiting a variety of sensory systems, each interacting in ways that elude human experience yet affect the shared environment. Contemporary Art and the Post-human World Since the 1990s, contemporary art has explored non-human themes, challenging human-centered perspectives and highlighting our interconnectedness with other species, technologies, and the environment. However, despite this shift, a gap remains in how effectively these works address the complexity and multiplicity of the non-human. This reveiw aims to identify and examine this gap, focusing on innovative techniques and technologies in sculpture and installation art that engage with non-human ideas. By analyzing existing works, this study seeks to reveal areas where current approaches may fall short in representing the non-human and suggest further exploration and development in this field. Meander (2020), Murmuring Minds (2024), and Can’t Help Myself (2016) are art robots —autonomously moving machines created for cultural purposes. These works serve as dynamic actors, simultaneously autonomous and programmed, offering commentary on human nature, societal structures, and our evolving relationships with machines. In these works, the non-human is a vehicle to reveal human issues. The human observer is still the central concern. Phillip Beasley and the Living Architecture Systems Group’s Meander (2020) (fig.1) is an example of digital sculpture, 3D printing and electronics to create a nonhuman inspired installation. Meander is an architectural and sculptural experiment inspired by organic forms. Constructed with 3D-printed, interlinked components, Meander consists of flexible lattices that adapt to environmental forces such as strong winds. Layers of overlapping, doubly curved, conical forms flex in response to viewer movement, informed by embedded sensors that detect human presence. It also intergrates live data from a nearby river, triggering ripples of light, sound, and motion. Meander is part of an effort to create responsive environments that simulates life. Its adaptive and empathic qualities aim to blur the boundaries between humans, technology, and nature, enhancing the spaces it occupies with a focus on human well-being. Meander is an environment that not only shelters but actively interacts with its inhabitants. Though intergrating the nonhuman within its design and as an example of exploration of machine life this works primary focus is supporting and protecting humans. Studio Drift’s Murmuring Minds (2024) explores swarm behaviour through an art robot performance that mimics the synchronised movements of animals like birds and insects. Using proximity sensors, processors, batteries, and motors, this piece coordinates sixty autonomous rectangular black blocks that form a responsive swarm within a defined rectangular performance space as an exhibit of LUMA Arles. The blocks’ movements are influenced by human participant choices, creating a dynamic interaction where disruptions or synchronised responses emerge based on the audience’s behaviour. By prompting viewers to make decisions that impact the swarm, Murmuring Minds highlights how social dynamics influence individual behaviour. This work merges technology and psychology to subtly investigate discursive control. As viewers interact with the swarm, they become aware of the influence their actions have on the collective. This work uses the the sensors and programming of a life like robot swarm to inform its human audience about human psychology. Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s Can’t Help Myself (2016), commissioned for the Guggenheim Museum, uses an industrial robot programmed to perform a repetitive, futile task: containing a viscous red liquid within a defined area. Enclosed behind acrylic walls, the robot detects when the liquid spills too far and reacts by frantically shovelling it back, leaving smudges that resemble bloodstains. This task, performed by a modified robotic arm equipped with a shovel and programmed with thirty-two distinct actions, engages with themes of migration, sovereignty, and control. The robot’s relentless task serves as a metaphor for authoritarianism and technology’s role in surveillance. Encased and on display, the machine appears conscious, even confined, evoking a voyeuristic fascination in viewers. The repetitive action raises questions of vulnerability: is the robot more at risk, or is it the human who created it and controls it? While Can’t Help Myself touches on ideas of artificial life and creativity, its focus remains on human society and our use of technology as a mechanism for both control and spectacle. Meander (2020), Murmuring Minds (2024), and Can’t Help Myself (2016) do not simply exist in the ambiguous spaces between humans and machines; they centre humanity as the subject of inquiry. Through complex systems of feedback, interaction, and response, these installations prompt reflection on the ways technology mirrors, modifies, and reveals human behaviour. These works use technology as a medium to illuminate an evolving relationship between humanity and its machines. While engaging with themes of autonomy and the non-human, they ultimately centre on human experience. Their use of technology and natural forms is to reflect on societal behaviours, control mechanisms, and human interactions. Despite their exploration of the non-human, the human observer remains central, interpreting and deriving meaning from these installations. Figure.1 Meander (2020) Phillip Beasley and the Living Architecture Systems Group. Image courtesy of Phillip Beasley Tele-present Wind (2024), H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g (2019) and Out of Season (2015) are artworks where technology is the focus as it explores and reveals aspects of a world that humans don’t percieve. David Bowen’s installations simulate natural systems through mechanical forms. Tele-present Wind (2024) is part of a series begun in 2011. This installation features 126 x/y tilting devices, each holds a dried plant stalk within a gallery. Their movement is synchronised with a stalk connected to an accelerometer located outside near the University of Minnesota. As wind moves the outdoor stalk, the accelerometer translates it into digital information, which is then transmitted to the gallery, in this case in Moscow, where the devices recreate the wind’s direction and intensity within the gallery space. The result is a tangible experience of environmental rhythms that viewers would otherwise find imperceptible. Bowen’s work reminds audiences of the invisible yet constant interactions that link distant environments. Its purpose to create a sensory bridge between the natural world and human-made spaces. Tele-present Wind both informs the human audience about the natural world and explores technology as an intermediary. Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto of ecoLogicStudio, in collaboration with the Synthetic Landscape Lab at the University of Innsbruck, developed H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g (2019) (fig.2) as a bio-digital sculpture that redefines the concept of ‘living’ within a synthetic framework. This large-scale, high-resolution 3D-printed piece draws inspiration from coral growth patterns. It’s cellular structure hosts photosynthetic cyanobacteria. These microorganisms, sustained in a biogel medium, are nurtured by simulated sunlight, which it converts into oxygen and biomass through photosynthesis. Commissioned by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g is both a host to living organisms and digital architecture, its intension being to challenge traditional boundaries of what is considered alive. Pasquero and Poletto view their creation as a collaboration with living matter. It is a merging of life sciences and digital art, where synthetic biology and creative design produce an artificial yet life-like form to explore how humans might adapt to sharing their space with hybrid ecosystems. H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g, though an experiment at a hybrid life forms, is concerned with human responses to that form and the possiblties for human environments. There is no true engagement with what that might mean for the new life being explored. This work, as technologically interesting and impressive as it is, stays focussed on the human. Out of Season (2015), by Erica Seccombe is a response to the ecological and technological shifts of her time, and is a way of encouraging viewers to reflect on humanity’s relationship with nature. Seccombe employs scientific imaging to document the germination of mung bean and alfalfa seeds, presenting this growth through a time-lapse projection in cinematic 3D to be viewed with red/cyan glasses. The result is an immersive experience that captures the sprouting process from both exterior and interior perspectives, creating a translucent visual narrative of life unfolding. This visualisation, beyond ordinary human perception, allows viewers to witness germination as an abstract, almost ethereal transformation. Seccombe’s work taps into the notion of a techno-scientific society and the ways it shapes our understanding of organic life. Out of Season uses technology to reveal a process humans cannot see and present it in an engaging manner, but it is as much a performance of that technology as an engement with the life of a seed. While these three artworks employ technology to reveal aspects of the natural world, they primarily serve to inform and educate the human observer. By translating natural phenomena into sensory experiences accessible to humans, they add to our understanding of the nonhuman and natural environment, but the focus of these works is enriching human experience, they do little to combat a human-centric point of view. H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g explores the use of living organisms in human architecture to improve human outcomes. Out of Season creates a sense of wonder using technology that reveals a unique perspective of germinating plant life. Both create a sculptural and visual spectacle rather than a sharing of a plant informed world veiw. Both focus on using living organisms to improve human existence and extend human understanding. Tele-present wind is about weather conditions revealed through technology. All these works are as much about technology as they are about human connections to nature. This reasserts the human as superior even as it reveals nature as ‘special.’ Figure .2 H.O.R.T.U.S. XL Astaxanthin.g (2019) Pasquero and Poletto of ecoLogicStudio, in collaboration with the Synthetic Landscape Lab at the University of Innsbruck. Image courtesy of Kioku Keizo The next works examined challenge anthropocentric perspectives and encourage audiences to think beyond humanity. Designs for a World of Many Worlds: After the Festival (2022) (fig.3) by Dunne & Raby and Untilled (2012) by Pierre Huyghe are two art installations that invite consideration of the world through the sensory experiences of non-human entities. In Designs for a World of Many Worlds: After the Festival, Dunne & Raby’s contribution to the NGV triennial 2023 present artefacts from a fictional festival celebrating humanity’s shift towards a multi-species viewpoint. The installation features speculative totems, mementos, and festival costumes constructed from a variety of materials, including cast glass, carved wood, and wool flocking, that symbolise a future where humans recognise themselves as one species among many, each perceiving the world through unique sensory lenses. One example is a small translucent human form followed by and far larger finely carved aromatic Huon pine ‘cloud’ billowing from the figures face, feet, and bottom. Designs for a World of Many Worlds encourages viewers to contemplate how human actions impact other species and to imagine a reality where human presence is just one of many influences in a shared environment. Pierre Huyghe’s Untilled was presented at dOCUMENTA (13) in 2012, situated in a composting area of Kassel’s Karlsaue Park. The installation features compost heaps, sprouting plants, and various materials like stacked paving slabs and mounds of black chips. Central to the piece was a reclining concrete figure, a replica of a 1930s sculpture by Max Weber, whose head was replaced by a live beehive, continuously reshaped by the bees as they pollinated the surrounding plant life. Additionally, a white greyhound named Human, distinguished by a pink leg, roamed the site, adding to the living elements of the piece. Huyghe incorporated psychotropic and medicinal plants, such as deadly nightshade and angel’s trumpets, planted in the compost heaps, further intertwining the natural and artistic elements. This integration challenges traditional notions of art, prompting viewers to question where the artwork ends, and nature begins. Huyghe’s approach involves creating ‘scenarios’, structures initiated by the artist that evolve independently, influenced by factors beyond his control, such as weather and the behaviours of living organisms. He combines various media with intelligent life forms, biological, technological, and inert matter, that learn, modify, and evolve. Huyghe conceives of the exhibition as not only an experience for the human audience but an encounter with a sentient environment that perceives and generates new possibilities of co-dependence between unfolding events or elements, nonhuman, organic, sentient, and non-sentient. Both installations challenge viewers to step outside human sensory limitations and embrace a world of diverse realities, each as significant as our own. However, while these works reveal the world as experienced by non-human entities and encourage consideration of the human as one of the many, the human audience remain observers rather than participants. The interactions between the installations and their components occur independently of human presence. Untilled is a landscape that exists as separate from any human audience, its interactions, such as ant colonies, and composting processes, are invisible to the human audience and its impact on that audience to difficult to identify. Designs for a World of Many Worlds: After the Festival, while thought provoking, is conventional in its presentation, being a collection of sculptures on platforms in a gallery, an exhibit to be inspected by the audience. Figure. 3 Designs for a World of Many Worlds: After the Festival (2023) Dunne & Raby. Image courtesy of M. Roodenrys The next works examined in this review are installations that use interactive art-robots to explore perspectives beyond human experience. Ken Rinaldo’s Autopoiesis (2000) and Anicka Yi’s In Love with the World (2022) are both works that employ electronic interactivity, including the viewer as a participant of their sensory environment. Autopoiesis featured fifteen robotic sculptures suspended from the ceiling, each with kinetic arms that responded to nearby human movement. Eight sensors placed at the top of each sculpture detected audience presence, activating programmed responses, and allowing each arm to interact with viewers and one another. These robots communicated through audible telephone tones, creating a distinctive, shared language that changed based on viewer interactions. Including organic materials like grapevines, the sculptures bridged the gap between the technological and the natural. Through minimal sensors yet effective programming, the installation achieved intricate, immersive interactions. Viewers became part of this dynamic, evolving, environment that included art, technology, and biology. Unlike the other interactive works reviewed such as Meander, and Murmurring Minds, Rinaldo positions the sense and response systems of Autopoiesis as a development of artificial life existing on its own terms rather than as an interesting function within an installation. Yi’s In Love with the World (2022) (fig. 4) transformed Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in Bankside, London into a habitat for aerobes, fictional machine-creatures that echo the appearance of ocean life and fungi. Imagined as independent entities within a ‘natural history of machines,’ the aerobes—bulbous ‘planulae’ and tentacled ‘xenojellies’—were designed to evoke both aquatic and terrestrial forms, presenting hybrid species that challenge boundaries between the organic and mechanical. The aerobes’ behaviour evolved continuously, responding to elements in their environment, much like organisms adapting to their ecosystems. Through scentscapes that shifted each week, Yi further enriched the sensory dimension of the installation. These scents connected the aerobes to the history of Bankside, evoking scents from different periods—from Precambrian seas to coal and ozone of the 20th century, and spices used during the Black Death. Yi’s aerobes, autonomous uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), demonstrated programmed behaviours that adapted to environmental changes, including heat signatures of nearby viewers. A complex system of sensors directed their movements, creating behaviours that varied with each interaction. Like Autopoiesis, In Love with the World highlights an alternative perspective on intelligence, one rooted in sensory interaction with the world. Yi questions the association of intelligence solely with the mind, asking whether physical intelligence, as sensed and experienced by bodies, could be extended to machines. Art robots like Ken Rinaldos Autopoiesis and Anicka Yis In Love with the World provide compelling examples of non-human engagement. In Autopoiesis, Rinaldos robots respond to the audience's presence, forming a networked, evolving experience that blurs distinctions between the technological and the organic. Yis aerobes in In Love with the World suggest a speculative natural history of machines, responding to environmental changes and connecting with viewers through shared sensory experiences. These works hint at a world inclusive of machine life forms. However, they ultimately frame the human audience as an equal participant in a relationship with a singular nonhuman actor, whether a linked robotic creation in Autopoiesis or a single ‘species’ in In Love with the World. Despite gestures toward nonhuman agency, the human remains the central, if not dominant, actor in these speculative worlds. Both works draw on biological forms or materials, In Love with the World references living organisms through its design, and Autopoiesis incorporates natural materials. Yet, they stop short of suggesting a world shared among a multitude of diverse life forms, both organic and machine. These robots exist as fascinating anomalies, but as outliers within an anthropocentric perspective. Critically, these works underscore a common limitation seen in all the works reviewed: the tendency to privilege human interaction, even when interrogating nonhuman agency. By maintaining the human as a primary ‘equal’ in these engagements, the artworks reflect a latent anthropocentrism, where humans are still at the centre of relational dynamics. This approach inadvertently upholds a human-focused worldview rather than fully embracing a more radical decentring, where human presence is just one element in an intra-action with equally significant life forms. Consequently, while these art works push boundaries, they do so within the framework of a world still fundamentally structured by human concerns, rather than envisioning a truly multi-species ecosystem where human dominance is relinquished. Figure .4 In Love with the World (2022) Anicka Yi. Photo by Will Burrard Lucas Conclusion In conclusion, while the reviewed artworks involving art robots and technological installations expose the porous boundaries between human and non-human entities, in the majority, they remain anchored within a human-centered perspective. These works, despite engaging with speculative concepts of autonomy, agency, and the non-human retain the human observer as the primary interpreter, framing non-human elements as extensions or reflections of human experience. Through these installations, societal structures, behavioural patterns, and environmental relations are mirrored, yet human significance is consistently reaffirmed. This research project, while inspired by existing works that examine human-technological relationships, seeks to move beyond these limitations by revealing the intricate intra-actions among diverse life forms. It seeks to position the human as just one element within a larger, interdependent ecosystem by creating an assemblage of interactive art robots that inhabit a speculative fiction. Here, humans are no longer dominant interpreters but rather one component in a network of diverse, intra-acting entities. By placing the human as a minority participant within a broader ecosystem, this research aims to foster a more radically decentred worldview, challenging anthropocentrism and proposing an immersive, multi-species environment. Research Topic The ongoing revelation that the world humans inhabit is not only shared with other life forms but is shaped and sustained by these nonhuman entities from microorganisms and oxygen-producing trees, to emerging machine systems, is crucial for understanding humanity’s role and survival in the Anthropocene. This research investigates the potential of creative practice to reveal these intricate intra-actions among diverse life forms by creating an assemblage of interactive art robots within a speculative fiction. Through creatively exploring the perceptual and cognitive processes seen in simple organisms and artificial life systems, this research seeks to illuminate the nonhuman majority, and challenge notions of human exceptionalism. Within this speculative evolving environment, human participants will be positioned as a minority engaging with nonhuman actors in unexpected ways so as to question and reframe the human-centered perspective. Research Question How can interactive sculptures and art robots, informed by contemporary scientific research and post-humanist philosophy, be used to de-centre the human perspective and reveal an intra-active ecosystem where human and nonhuman entities shape each other’s existence? Research Objectives This project explores two interconnected areas of inquiry: 1.De-Centring the Human in an Intra-Active World: Drawing from contemporary scientific research on cognition and perception in simple organisms, as well as new materialist and post-humanist philosophy, this research aims to challenge anthropocentric perspectives by de-centring the human observer. Through interactive sculptures and experiences, it seeks to convey an interconnected world where human and nonhuman entities influence and shape each other’s existence, encouraging the human audience to reflect on their role within a broader ecosystem. By focusing on the intra-active relationship rather than human-dominated values, the installation seeks to reveal aspects of the world that remain beyond direct human experience yet affect our shared existence. 2.Digital Art, Art Robots, and Emerging Technologies: This research also investigates the use of emerging digital tools and systems. By integrating interactive digital technology and art robots, as small and large assemblages and installations, this project advances the field of creative practice. It will explore 3D modelling, printing, and robotics to create individual robots with distinct perceptual systems. These art robots, each with their own sensory and programmed cognitive processes, will interact with one another and with human participants in an unscripted, responsive manner, creating connections between art, technology, and biology. Research Methodology This research employs a practice led and practice-based approach where research and practice interdependently generate new knowledge, a process rooted in creativity, originality, and the iterative development of art forms (Candy, Edmonds, & Vear, 2021). Here, practice serves as both a means of inquiry and a mode of expression. This project is grounded in new materialism, specifically Karen Barad’s concept of intra-action, a term introduced by Barad (2007, p. 33), will be central to this methodology. Unlike "interaction," which assumes that separate entities come together, intra-action emphasises that these elements only become distinct through their connections. They do not exist independently, entities are not pre-existing but emerge through their relationships. In this context, human and nonhuman elements are not discrete but are co-constituted, interacting in ways that shape each other’s existence. This informs the project’s aim to reveal the subtle, dynamic interactions across life forms, as experienced through both human and nonhuman perspectives. Creative reflective practice is integral to this methodology, allowing iterative development and adaptation of techniques, tools, and interpretations. It is through examining the creative process as I explore the perception and response mechanisms that characterise nonhuman systems through materials and techniques, that this research will be realised. This reflective process aligns with Sullivan’s notion of art as a transformative act, where artist and audience alike can shift their perspectives through engagement with the work (Sullivan, 2009). Research Methods This project will employ a range of methods designed to integrate digital art, art robots, and interactive installations. Together, these methods reveal a world in which humans are participants within a shared environment rather than central figures. Four main methods will be explored, each addressing a different dimension of the project: 1.Design and Creation of Art Robots As a visual artist with a foundation in traditional media, I have expanded my practice to incorporate digital modelling, 3D printing, and interactivity. This research continues my development of new media techniques through digital modelling software (e.g., Blender for digital sculpture and Autodesk for design) and physical prototyping using 3D printing. The art robots created will embody perceptual and response mechanisms inspired by simple organisms, presenting these entities at a scale accessible to humans and encourage reflection on the overlooked and often invisible forms of nonhuman life and the possible artificial life of the machine. This work will embrace the mechanical, material characteristics embodied in the printing process and electronic elements. Development will be an iterative process of making and testing, both as visually satisfying and evocative elements and as functioning electronic and mechanical systems. By translating the behavioural responses of simple organisms into interactive robotic forms, the development of the creative artefacts will explore ways in which to create speculative, intra-active environments. The prototypes developed through this process will enable testing of various configurations, materials, and sensory responses, informing the final assemblage of interactive works. 2.Interaction through Sensors and Sensory Systems A core component of this project is the integration of sensors to simulate sensory experiences and create autonomous responses. Drawing on the sensing mechanisms of simple organisms, this research will experiment with sensors that can detect environmental changes—such as proximity, light, and temperature. Arduino and similar platforms will support the programming required to interpret these sensory inputs and trigger actions through actuators like motors or lights. I will draw on online tutorials, maker community chat rooms and DIY electronics YouTube videos for technical assistance. By programming the robots to respond autonomously to environmental stimuli, the sculptures will mimic nonhuman perceptual systems, enabling interactions with both each other and human participants. This method allows for the exploration of intra-active relationships, where human and robotic interactions affect each other in unpredictable ways. A key concept is that a relatively simple detection and response system can create a sophisticated interaction. When combined with multiple differently configured systems this project aims to create a generative, independently responsive environment. 3. Exhibition, Installation and Design The research will be realised as a series of iterative exhibitions, culminating in a final exhibition designed as an immersive environment where art robots interact autonomously with one another and with the human audience. This environment will highlight the interdependence between living and artificial systems, encouraging viewers to reflect on their role within a broader ecosystem. Prototype development and display in smaller, informal exhibitions throughout the project’s development will facilitate ongoing feedback from peers, the art interested and the general public. This will inform continued development and refinement. Site-specific considerations, including power requirements, accessibility, and physical security, as well as aesthetic and conceptual concerns will inform the final installation design. 4. Exegesis This research is supported by an exegesis. This will be presented as series of chapters that explore this research in relation to contemporary art, theoretical concepts informing the research, and methods and process. Possible chapter titles. 1. Art robots and contemporary sculpture, biotic looking, biotic acting. 2. DIY to million-dollar budgets; What does that mean as a solo maker? 3. Barad’s apparatus and digital sculpture, photogrammetry and 3d printing 4. An assemblage of art robots and making kin 5. DIY and the maker space. How YouTube taught me to make art robots 6. Who invited you? The human in the room 7. From SEM photography to fungi hunter photo blogs; inspiration for digital sculpture. 8. How to make and manage waste in prototype construction. 9. Scenography and installation, how to create a speculative world. Rationale for Focusing on Simple Organisms This research focuses on simple organisms for two primary reasons: •Directness of Response: Simple organisms, with fewer components, provide clear and direct interactions that are easier to interpret and replicate in robotic systems. This enables an exploration of perceptual and response systems without the complexity of larger, multicellular organisms. •Representation of nonhuman majority: These organisms, overlooked and literally unseen, are part of the nonhuman majority. By scaling up their physical presence and translating their perceptual experiences, the project challenges anthropocentric views, positioning the human as just one participant within an intra-active environment where these smallest of life forms are the base on which larger more complex organisms exist. Conclusion This project aims to reveal the intricate intra-actions among diverse life forms through an assemblage of interactive art robots, highlighting the complex intra-actions that define our shared environment. By combining practice based and led research, creative reflective practice, and emerging technologies, this project will explore nonhuman perception and invite its audience to reconsider the boundaries between humans, technology, and other life forms. Through iterative testing, audience feedback, and continuous refinement, the final installation will offer a unique perspective on the interactions that shape our world.