Rebekka Soma is a PhD-candidate in the research group DESIGN (of information systems) at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. Her main interests are at the intersection between phenomenology and natural sciences. Questions tied to both the nature and experience of interacting, with everything from natural objects, human artefacts, and other living beings. Her interest in robots are the questions they provoke her to ask concerning human ways of relating to others.
Through perception of animacy, many abilities tied to animacy is projected onto robotic systems. This paper engages the non-trivial task of languaging the experience of perception of animacy in human--robot encounters. Starting out from a wonder at how it can be that a robotic lawnmower phenomenally appear as “something it is not, doing things it isn’t doing”. Through the help of Sheets-Johnstone's animate form, the paper combines Gibson's ecological psychology with Uexküll's Umwelt theory. The paper looks at one perspective on movement, or a false self-movement, as a disguise.
