Conference | workshop
Generative AI and Embodied Cognition
- Date
- Tuesday 25 November 2025
- Time
- Location
- V2_ Lab for unstable media
Eendrachtsstraat 10 10
3012 XL Rotterdam
While applications of generative AI quickly spread across increasingly more aspects of human life it is important to go back to the foundational questions of how to define intelligence and of the role of embodied and situated conditions of its operation. How does the ‘body’ of an AI agent can make a difference in its ability to learn from its surroundings and behave accordingly?
This workshop will investigate the evolving impact of generative artificial intelligence on human creativity across society, with a particular focus on the relationship between AI and embodied cognition—especially as expressed through movement, gesture, and sensory experience. At the morning and afternoon sessions 6 internationally recognized artists-researchers will share their visions and ongoing work at the intersection of art, robotics, philosophy, aesthetics and affect studies.
Louis-Philippe Demers, Emmanuel Gollob, and Kim Baraka will discuss human-robot interaction in their respective performative and installation-based projects, focusing on the issues of autonomy, anthropomorphization, emotional bonds and power relations between human and nonhuman entities. A presentation on operational aesthetics by Samuel Bianchini will set a broader theoretical, historical and curatorial perspective on machine learning and adaptation in the context of embodied and experience-driven cognition. Sonia de Jager will support her inquiry into breath as logic and its impact on thought and interactions with chatbots by a practical exercise, while Mark Meeuwenoord will address artificial kinship in both virtual and physical storytelling.
The workshop is organised by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) and the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) with support of Leiden University Kiem grant for interdisciplinary collaboration.
Contact: Pragya Jain (p.jain@hum.leidenuniv.nl)
Organisers: Dr. Rob Saunders & Dr. Ksenia Fedorova
PROGRAM:
10.00 – 10.30h: Walk- In
10.30 - 12.30h: MORNING SESSION
12.30- 14.00h: LUNCH BREAK
14.00 – 16.00h: AFTERNOON SESSION
16.40 – 17.30h: BAR OPENS
Moderators: Petra Gemeinboeck, Ksenia Fedorova