Letting nonhumans speak: AI agents as performative devices for situated STS research. Workshop W109 at conference EASST2026.
https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/easst2026/p/18126
An interactive workshop exploring AI agents as performative mediators that give data, models, and infrastructures a voice in STS inquiries through participatory simulations and speculative design. We will use Krakow satellite data and let neighborhoods and places discuss environmental issues.
Description
This workshop invites participants to explore how AI agents can act as performative mediators between human and nonhuman worlds, giving voice to data, infrastructures, and environments. Using the open-source Satellite Personas platform developed by our Design & Policy Lab (https://github.com/anonette/satelite_personas), we will transform Sentinel-2 satellite data from Krakow into AI agents representing different buildings and neighborhoods. These agents will stage a public theatrical conflict, each attempting to persuade the audience on environmental issues affecting their area. The public will then vote, turning deliberation into a participatory experiment in situated agency.
To amplify this performative dimension, we will use puppets, generated animation, but also test different linguistic typologies (ergative, nominative, and polysynthetic structures) and explore how grammatical alignment shapes notions of agency, relation, and responsibility. Participants will collectively design and release these AI agents, observing their interactions and rhetorical tactics.
Through this process, we will reflect on how linguistic typologies and data infrastructures co-determine who or what can appear as a speaking subject within socio-technical systems. The workshop draws on material semiotics, computational ethnography, and performative research, extending STS debates on representation and accountability into algorithmic and environmental domains.
While STS has long moved beyond human and posthuman discourses to trace heterogeneous networks of agency, our Satellite Personas turn this analytic gesture into a performative one, enabling nonhumans to articulate their own positions through data, grammar, and place. here is an early demo from Prague https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T7ZTEQthoUtkUDIjaSmp6txqiOK82qMf/view?usp=sharing
One 90-minute session, flexible seating, projector, Wi-Fi access, and participants’ laptops. Max. 25 participants.
Abstracts must be submitted through the official EASST 2026 conference system.
Search for “Letting nonhumans speak: AI agents as performative devices for situated STS research” Workshop W109
https://easst.net/conference/easst2026/call-for-abstracts/
For any questions, please contact us:
algorithms.automation@gmail.com
Convenor: Denisa Reshef Kera, Associate Professor, Design & Policy Lab,
Science, Technology, and Society studies, Bar Ilan University