Yogyakarta, 7th November 2025 — Media and Cultural Program, The Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada, held a guest lecture titled “Human Perception and Digital Information Technologies: Animation, The Body, and Affect.” The event took place at the 5th-floor Auditorium from 09.00 to 12.00 WIB, featuring Dr. Tomoko Tamari from Goldsmiths, University of London as the speaker.
In the first session, Dr. Tamari invited the audience to reflect on how contemporary artistic practices raise questions about the impact of biotechnology and digital technology on human life. She highlighted Ai Hasegawa’s speculative design project (Im)possible Baby, which imagines the possibility of a genetically related child for same-sex couples, and Ines Alpha’s futuristic 3D makeup art, as examples of the “digital self” that can be activated or deactivated at will. These perspectives were connected with theoretical ideas such as technology as an active participant in social life (Verbeek), the brain as a “prediction machine” (Andy Clark), and the body as the medium of experience (Merleau-Ponty). This framework offered new insights into how the material–digital world co-shapes our bodies, minds, and relationships.
The issue of digital intimacy also emerged: how algorithms, devices, and platforms mediate personal communication while influencing everyday decision-making. At this point, Dr. Tamari emphasized the need for ethical attentiveness—not only toward what technology ability, but also on the world we are building with it.
The second session explored human–machine collaboration in art, with a case study on robot drawing practices. Using the framework of embodiment (Don Ihde) and the triadic agency model (Johnson & Verdicchio), Dr. Tamari explained the interaction among three agents—artist as user, programmer as designer, and robot as artifact—each shaping and being shaped throughout the process from conceptualization to performance. Examples discussed included the FRIDA project at Carnegie Mellon University, which demonstrates how artistic concepts are translated into machine language and, in turn, reshape the artist’s aesthetic decisions.
The discussion expanded to trans-knowledge processes (the transfer of skills across bodies, tools, and codes), affordance (Gibson), which emphasizes the interrelation between actors and environments, and the notion of the robot as an “extimate” technology—an intimate other: familiar yet alien, a mirror of the self yet a distinct entity. The robot emerges as a tool and also as material, as a visualization apparatus, and even as a performer that redefines the boundaries of art itself.
Concluding the lecture, Dr. Tamari encouraged participants to view the digital future reflectively: when we design and live with technology, we are simultaneously redesigning our bodies, minds, and societies.
Author: Khoirul Mujazanah