Sympoiesis

Robotics as design material
Sympoiesis pairs a human and a KUKA KR6 industrial robot in a co-creative drawing exercise. Inspired by Habraken's Silent Game, the two take turns, each interpreting the other's gestures and responding through movement and mark-making.
The gesture vocabulary borrows from choreographer William Forsythe's Improvisational Technologies, where bodily movements are analyzed as simple geometries: points, lines, planes. 
These become the sensing language the robot uses to read and respond to the human. The robot's end effector, a modular steel toolhead with sensors and a marker, was built to be reconfigured across different creative setups.
MDes thesis at UC Berkeley, advised by Eric Paulos and Kyle Steinfeld. The project explores what happens when we treat robotics as design material rather than automation.












Year

2022

Team
Georgios Grigoriadis

Medium

Robotics, Computer Graphics, Digital Fabrication, Sensors and Cameras


© Georgios Grigoriadis 2026