Behavioral Objects, Behavioral Matter: Rethinking Robotics Through Contemporary Art

Wednesday, March 25, 2026, at 6pm, Hauptplatz 6, Hörsaal D

Guest Lecture by Samuel Bianchini as part of the RC Lecture Series

This guest lecture explores the notion of behavioral objects – contemporary artworks able to act and respond, exhibiting forms of autonomous behavior. Though these non-anthropomorphic entities move without an obvious function, their animation is nonetheless read as if guided by intentions, thereby challenging their status as objects. Uncanny and profoundly unsettling, they destabilize what we consider to be alive and, by extension, what we understand as human.

In his talk, Samuel Bianchini will share research from his recently co-edited book Behavioral Objects, Behavioral Matter: Rethinking Robotics Through Contemporary Art, interwoven with insights from his own artistic practice. He will also introduce .able, the image-based journal at the intersection of art, design and science, that he founded and currently edits.

Samuel Bianchini is an artist and associate professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs – Paris (EnsAD)/ PSL Université de recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres. Supporting the principle of an “operational aesthetic,” Bianchini examines the relationships between cutting-edge technological dispositifs, modes of representation, new forms of aesthetic experience and sociopolitical organizations, often in collaboration with scientists and research laboratories in the natural sciences and engineering.

This Guest Lecture is hosted by Emanuel Gollob and Amir Bastan (University of Arts Linz, Creative Robotics & PhD Research Collective) as part of the Research Collective Lecture Series 2026.

Related websites:

https://dispotheque.org/en
https://able-journal.org/en/home/

RC LECTURE DATES FOR THE SUMMER TERM 2026

25.03.2026, 18:00
Kunstuniversität Linz, Hauptplatz 6, Hörsaal DSamuel Bianchini: Behavioral Objects, Behavioral Matter: Rethinking Robotics Through Contemporary Art

14.04.2026, 18:00
Kepler Salon, Rathausgasse 5Paul D. Miller – DJ Spooky