Robot (inter)faces: Understanding and mapping robot/avatar faces

Faces are a vital feature of many robots/avatars, signifying the robot and avatar’s identity and emotion, indicating attention, and orienting the robot/avatar in physical and intersubjective space. They are central to the illusion of anthropomorphic personification, apparent liveness and presence. Adopting media philosophy, ethnographical approaches and STS to robots, this event explores the features and situated performances of robot and avatar’s faces.

Bio of speakers

Chris Chesher is a senior lecturer in Digital Cultures at the University of Sydney. His research concentrates on emerging media, their cultural contexts and histories. He has published in New Media and Society, the International Journal of Social Robotics, M/C journal and Convergence. His forthcoming book Invocational Media: Reconceptualising the Computer will be released in 2023.

Justine Humphry is a senior lecturer in Digital Cultures at the University of Sydney. Her research examines the cultural and political implications of digital media and emerging technologies in everyday life including mobile, smart and robotic technologies. Her 2022 book Homelessness and Mobile Communication – Precariously Connected reveals the role of mobile media in the lived experience of homelessness and the consequences of smart cities and algorithmic governance for marginalised publics.

Chihyung Jeon is an associate professor of science and technology policy at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). He is interested in the feelings of control, empowerment, intimacy, anxiety, and loneliness that humans have in front of machines, including robots and AI systems. In the academic year of 2023, he is working as a visiting researcher at the Institute for Future Initiatives of the University of Tokyo.

Celia Spoden is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. Her research focusses on bioethical issues and the social impacts of digital transformation. In her current project she explores what opportunities and risks new technologies – especially telepresence and avatar technologies – mean for social participation and inclusion, and for interaction between human and human or human and machine. Her previous projects have included research on the relationship between life-sustaining treatments, social participation, and subjective quality of life.

AI Governance Project
Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo

E-mail: ifi_ai[at]ifi.u-tokyo.ac.jp
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