Somatechnically Mediated Telexistence - On the Intercorporeal, Identitary and Social-Theoretical Implications of Interaction with Controllable Robotic Avatars

• Applicant: Dr. Ilona Straub
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory ; Automation, Mechatronics, Control Systems, Intelligent Technical Systems, Robotics ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 518821851

The research project aims to analyse in an empirical long-term study the experiential dimensions of immersion in a controllable robot avatar as a "secondary technical body" in the detachment from bodily-spatial co-presence to "telexistence" in another place on the a) bodily-identitary experiences of the controller, on b) interactive practices of intercorporeal communication as well as on c) the constitution of a hybrid-bodily society. The special feature of the planned research project lies in the interest in bringing together findings on somatechnologies from current debates, methods and results of the interdisciplinary research field of human-computer interaction and telerobotics research with neo- and post-phenomenologically oriented concepts of the sociology of the body. The latter will be questioned as to whether their immanent organic, situational and material limits of identitary bodily experiences and their significance for emerging interaction practices and technohybrid social designs are still viable. In order to capture the specifics of the immersive somatic transfer of users into the technical second body, a 12-month research stay is planned in the research group "Avatar Systems - Telexistence" at the Istituto Italiano Di Technologia, Artificial and Mechanical Intelligence (iit) in Genoa, Italy, where controllable interaction robots are developed and the phenomenon of "telexistence" can be empirically elaborated through own long-term studies on study participants. The material will be supplemented by further studies on illusions of virtual body exchange at various locations. In addition to ethnography and experimental research, interviews with engineers provide insights into production processes as well as their technically hybrid ideas of society in the future. In this way, comprehensive data sets on long-term interactions emerge, in which the participants in the human-robot constellation repeatedly encounter each other over a long-term period and form routine practices of gestalt dislocation. The interdisciplinary design of the long-term study represents a forward-looking attempt for the engineering and social sciences to holistically grasp the extent of the dislocation phenomenon and to gain realistic assessments for future application scenarios and developments of somatechnologies, as well as to initiate discussions on the technology assessment of identity-changing body technologies. In this sense, the proposed project will contribute to closing an existing research gap on the role of technology for the sociology of the body: a) by elaborating an interdisciplinary conceptual framework for bodily human-technology-world relations, b) by providing empirical data on the effects of dislocated presence experiences in telerobotics on body, identity and interaction experiences, and c) by determining the consequences of somatechnological body concepts for hybrid social designs.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Italy, Spain
• Cooperation Partners: Dr.-Ing. Daniele Pucci; Dr. Marte Roel