Somabotics: Creatively Embodying AI

Steve Benford (University of Nottingham) started this session with an explanation of Somabotics: Creatively Embodying AI, a 5-year research program exploring how AI enables human meaning making through art, the body, senses, and emotions. With a focus on embodied experiences, the project builds on Blast Theory’s Cat Royale (2023), presented during Transformation Digital Art 2023, which required improvisation, rich documentation, and datasets from the data collected during the project’s duration. Overall, the project helps underpin the relationship between documentation and datasets, and the use of AI within these elements.

Performance Installation of Embrace Angels

As part of the Somabotics project, artist duo Lancel/Maat have begun the research project and performance installation Embrace Angels (2024-2026). In her presentation, Karen Lancel shared the core question of the project: “Can humans and robots truly embrace one another?” This work imagines new poetic embracing rituals uniting humans, robots, and cyborgs in intimacy. Two automated moving industrial robot arms are embraced by Lancel/Maat, which activates the robot arms into a puppeteering role. Lancel/Maat’s participation in the performance is real-time documented through AI software, which lends to the question of what AI-driven data will shape our future embraces?

Interactions between AI and Documentation

The use of AI to increase bandwidth ideation in workshops was presented by Richard Ramchurn (University of Nottingham), giving insights into approaches for documentation during workshops and projects such as Embrace Angels. Ramchurn discussed his interactions with AI documentation, which involves iterating ideas, transforming actions, and extending imagination. Each type of interaction implements AI in a different fashion, showcasing the dynamic essence of the technology within the realm of documentation.

Gabriella Giannachi (University of Exeter) presented on the multi-faceted nature documentation, as it can be led in a variety of ways including but not limited to: artist, museum, researcher, or audience. There are questions as to how AI can help relate these various forms of documentation to each other. This sentiment is being investigated within projects such as Lancel/Maat’s Embrace Angels, where there was an initial role of AI for documentation that evolved into AI influencing the artistic practice as a whole. Giannachi explored how the formation of a stakeholder ecosystem could help mitigate AI risks, and offered Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) AI as a possible solution to further discuss. 

Panel Discussion

Moderated by Annet Dekker (University of Amsterdam), the panel discussion explored the intersection of AI, human-robot interaction, and ethical concerns surrounding these interactions. The discussion considered how text prompts can influence AI outputs and the role of AI in shaping human-robot relationships. Prompted by audience engagement, key topics included in the panel discussion were the ethical implications of robots embracing humans and the potential political consequences of AI pushing boundaries, especially regarding the concept of consent. 

The panel delved into responsible AI use while highlighting the simultaneous fostering of playful creativity and thoughtful exchanges. An emphasis was placed on the need for co-creation and interdependence to effectively deal with AI. The argumentation of subjective, positional, and open data labeling was a crucial aspect of the discussion, as this approach would allow users to easily access and better understand such choices. 

Through audience intrigue, the personal and emotional feelings that occurred during the embraces in Embrace Angels were detailed by the panel experts who experienced it first-hand. The experts explained the discomfort some humans felt towards the robots, contrasting this with animals’ more natural interactions with machines in projects such as Cat Royale. Overall, the panel discussion pinpointed that critical engagement with AI is crucial, as well as the need for continuous dialogue around its role in society.

Author: Olivia Schoenfeld, contemporary art conservation post-master's student

Keywords: AI, documentation, preservation, robots, media art, Somabotics

Header image: Karen Lancel. Transformation Digital Art 2025, 21 March. Photo by Alex Heuvink.