Performing Relations: The role of corporeal habits in human–robot interactions

Abstract

This article investigates the role of corporeal habits in the creation and maintenance of a relational layer among humans and robots in a performance context. Drawing on Gregory Bateson's work, this article analyses how habits shape this relational bond in two robotic artworks: Ruairi Glynn's Performative Ecologies and Paula Gaetano Adi's Anima. These case studies illustrate how the performance space provides an ideal ground to experiment with habit formation at the interface of humans and robots. Moreover, this article offers an embodied and relational perspective to human–machinic interaction that embraces ways of relating to highly different nonhuman corporealities.