Abstract In this talk, I’ll share how my artistic practice, Animaspace, explores conversation between humans and robots through continuous co-regulation, where we become a joint cognitive system unfolding across time, space, and embodied presence. My focus is on how systems feel and how these conversations reveal who we are becoming when intelligence becomes relational.
I’ll walk through four conversations: 1. Conversation of Presence (I/Another): Conversation between the human body (I), the robotic body (Another), and space (a potential movement network), with cognition distributed across the three. 2. Conversation of Sensation ([Skin]): Conversation between a robotic wearable’s inner patterns and rhythms, the human skin, and other robotic wearables. 3. Conversation of Making (Robots4Commons): Conversation between an industrial robot, Kapla towers, and children. 4. Conversation of Freedom (Coordinated°): Conversation between drones, opposition, and authoritarian regime(s).
These conversations open two main questions: Existentially: How do we discover ourselves through encountering an other that doesn’t conform to us, one that reveals who we are in ways we can only understand intuitively? Ethically: What does care mean when it’s not something we give, but a capacity we maintain together across differences in distributed systems with human and non-human actors?
I’ll close with Relational Responsibility, inviting the community to reflect on what a gentle machine might mean in the context of healthcare and planetary health for a new artwork. | 
