1. Seeking Syncretism in Post-biological Mixed
Reality Real-time Data Transfer Systems
Julian Stadon
Curtin University of Technology
julianstadon@gmail.com

2. My Research offers a contribution to an emerging
culturally orientated discourse regarding syncretic,
hybridized agency, particularly in mixed reality data
transfer systems. Recent developments in bridging
autonomous relationships with digital representation
through mixed reality interfacing, have brought about
the need for further analysis of these new „post-
biological‟, hybridized states of being that traverse
traditional paradigms of time and space. Roy Ascott‟s
concept of syncretism may facilitate further
understanding of multi-layered world views, both
material and metaphysical, that are emerging from our
engagement with such pervasive computational
technologies and post-biological systems. Syncretism
has traditionally been regarded as an attempt to
harmonise and analogise.

3. This particular conversation adopts a syncretic
approach to the gathering of disparate beliefs and
ideologies in order to expand on the topic of
anthropomorphic representation in order to
deconstruct our relationships with agents and the
architecture of autonomy. Focusing on networked
agency this investigation seeks to articulate the
need for dialogue in anthropomorphic social
robotics to include a more holistic approach, in
order to fully understand the breadth of
relationships, particularly their effect on
consciousness and identity. In this paper I refer to
the notion of agency rather than the field of robotics
as I believe the notion of servitude applies even to
the most advanced artificially intelligent autonomous
robots.

4. “One of the crucial concerns of robotic
art is the nature of a robot's behavior: Is
it autonomous, semi-autonomous,
responsive, interactive, adaptive,
organic, adaptable, telepresential, or
otherwise?. The behavior of other agents
with which robots may interact is also
key to robotic art. The interplay that
occurs between all involved in a given
piece (robots, humans, etc.) defines the
specific qualities of that piece.”
Eduardo Kac and Marcel.li Antunez Roca Originally published on the Web in
Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Vol. 5, N. 5, May 1997.

5. Steigler and Promethean Alchemy

6. The Fault of Epimetheus
In this age of contemporary technics, it might be thought
that technological power risks sweeping the human
away. This is one of the possible conclusions of this
presentation. Work, family, and traditional forms of
communities would be swept away by the
deterritorialization (that is, bydestruction) of ethnic
groups, and also of knowledge, nature, and politics (not
only by the delegation of decision making but by the
“marketization” of democracy [...]

7. The Fault of Epimetheus
[...] the economy (by the electronization of the financial
activity that now completely dominates it), the
alteration of space and time (not only inter-individual
spaces and times, by the globalization of interactions
through the deployment of telecommunication
networks, the instantaneity of the processes, the “real
time” and the “live”, but also the space and time of the
“body proper” itself, by the tele-aesthesia or “tele-
presence”, a neologism that bears as it stands the
whole weight of the contradictions that we shall
attempt to think through here). [...]

8. The Fault of Epimetheus
[…] For the moment, let us refrain from asking whether
the nature of the human is threatened by alteration or
even disappearance, for one would first have to know
whether humanity ever had a nature.”
Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time, 1. The Fault of
Epimetheus

9. a call for a new definition due to
networked consciousness
Second order cybernetics was very successful in
its endeavor to explain our early relationships
with robots in terms of interactivity and
connectivity however the incorporation of more
networked systems of
autonomous/anthropomorphic based
interactions have created a system of agency
that is less anchored in a traditional bio-
physical/electro-physical dichotomy

11. latency within agency
The core relation to the structure of autonomy is latency
in open systems of engagement. All cybernetic
feedback systems endure what is known as time-space
inconsistency. This is the spatial difference between
user and agent and occurs due to latency, bandwidth
speed, the paths chosen for data transfer to occur to
name a few examples.
It is a popular belief that we are now, through a media
convergent, participatory culture (integrated socially
through a subnet of platforms) creating a collective
intelligence that exists in this global village of
knowledge (data) transfer.

12. re/deterritorialisation
This creates a deterritorialised autonomy in that a
potentially infinite number of users can participate with
agents in this „gap‟. It is in this ambiguous space that
robots can truly become autonomous as they are free
within the network, emancipated of control and
alleviated of the responsibility to respond. While
computer scientists detest the effect this has on
functionality, artists should embrace this in between
space. It is a new millennium version of the gap
between painting and viewer, representation and
ideas, but it goes beyond dichotomies. It is forever
expansive in it‟s invitation to be engaged with.

13. In Difference and Repetition Deleuze introduces
the notion of deterritorialisation (through
dispersion) as a “dark precursor” that “relates
heterogeneous systems and even
completely disparate things.” In order for
deterritorialisation to occur there must be
some form of agent that can remain constant
and self-referent. Deleuze and Guatarri state
that: “The alignment of the code or linearity
of the nucleic sequence in fact marks a
threshold of deterritorialisation of the “sign”
that gives it a new ability to be copied and
makes the organism more deterritorialised than
a crystal: only something deterritorialised is
capable of reproducing itself.”

14. In the same way that a digital device
deterritorialises and reterritorialises
information through binary code, the
augmentation of an autonomous agent into a
shared space with the body, creates new
opportunities for investigation into
technology, the body and identity.

15. Digital MIXED reality‟s hybridization with physical
and biological architectures is constructed by the
methods used to connect the environments. The
combination and cohesion of heterogeneous
elements is generally problematic, particularly when
a three dimensional space is primarily viewed on a two
dimensional plane.
The integration of virtual elements and physical
environments relies on bridging the two spaces
with dynamic networked interfaces that are
simultaneously accessible and able to be openly
engaged with, edited and developed. To create
integration systems that network physical and
virtual data shared locations are required in order
to represent the data in a meaningful way, that is
inclusive of both environments.

16. The advent of nanobiology has called
for a rethinking of Hayles and
Harraways‟ post-human discourse
through it shifting our perception of
organisms from micro to nano
scale.

17. post-biological digital ID
Post-biological, in this sense, refers to a redefinition of
the embodied subject which encompasses their
location in virtual environments as well as in the
physical. This involves the creation, through art
practice, of what we might term autonomous agents
that are born from data but which take on the
appearance of bio-forms and thus become embodied.
At the same time these agents are a differential
embodiment of the „bodies‟, which first generated that
data in their everyday activities.

18. The existence of „embodied information‟, linked to
and yet not the same as embodied selves,
creates an interface through which humans
negotiate their identities across the boundaries
of different reality states, more or less virtual,
and yet always involving the mapping or writing
of that identity onto „a body‟. By having bodies
both material and virtual, humans have
become post-biological even as their biology
remains the primary point of reference for
the data gathering, which enables this
transition to occur.

19. moving beyond post-human
Hayles and Haraway deal within this paradigm of gender
and traditional western philosophy. This concept of
humanism is no longer valid due to biological
progression in the field of
neuroscience/consciousness. This calls for a discourse
that is more inclusive of other organisms. This is
further expressed by vision science, particularly atomic
force microscopy, digital telescopes etc. The universe
is now visible from the extremes of spatial distance.

20. Post-Biological Discourse Defined in
Reference to Real Time Networked Data
Transfer
Post-biological, in this sense, refers to a redefinition
of the embodied subject which encompasses their
location in virtual environments as well as in the
physical. This involves the creation, through art
practice, of what we might term autonomous
agents that are born from data but which take on
the appearance of bio-forms and thus become
embodied. At the same time these agents are a
differential embodiment of the „bodies‟, which first
generated that data in their everyday activities.

21. CONTEXTUALISING SYNCRETIC
POST-BIOLOGICAL DIGITAL
SYSTEMS AND IDENTITY
While they may lose their function without a user,
agents do still exist as digital data/archives and
often experiences with such entities are
remembered independently of any knowledge of
the viewer.

22. IDENTITY
Brian Massumi states, “The body,sensor
of change, is a transducer of the
virtual.”
Through existing in these virtual
representations, that are directly linked
to living bio- systems, we effectively
sense, feel and think in a way that
hybridizes the virtual with scientific
inquiry, and therefore we require a
discourse that addresses how this does
in fact make us post-biological.

23. Avatars represent a transient, continually altered
identity, usually that of its author and acts as
an agent, through which users can engage with
virtual platforms. This is particularly interesting
when participants can physically interact with a
virtual deterritorialised „self‟ in a networked
environment and mediate it through physical
engagement. The dispersion of multiple virtual
agents via mixed reality constructs and
expands deterritorialisation to include
reterritorialisation, by facilitating a dispersive
relationship between the body and its virtual
self-referent.

24. syncretism
It is a popular belief that we are now, through a media
convergent, participatory culture (integrated socially
through a subnet of platforms) creating a collective
intelligence that exists in this global village of
knowledge (data) transfer.1 This perspective evades
mythological notions of anthropomorphic interaction.
Networked robotic systems that use real time MRDT
expand autonomous robotic interaction beyond
traditional bio-physical/electro-physical relationships
and are integral to understanding our relationship with
autonomous agents.

25. syncretism
Adopting a syncretic approach to this discourse allows for
the inclusion of social networks in dialogue concerning
social robotics. Syncretism has traditionally been
regarded as an attempt to harmonise and analogise
disparate ideologies, socio-political views and fields of
inquiry.

26. ROY ASCOTT‟S PARADIGM

27. In regards to real time digital participation
this thinking interrogates the meaning and
consequences of the possibility of the
notion of „agents‟ and, in doing so, enables
us to question the notion that information,
once extracted from the embodied self and
placed within a computer system, becomes
„bodiless‟. In posing that question we
discover that, contrary to what we might at
first assume, data is also embodied.

28. “Just as cybernetics analogizes
differences between systems,
so syncretism finds likeness
between unlike things.
Syncretic thinking breaches
boundaries and subverts
protocols. Thinking out of the
box, testing the limits of
language, behaviour and
thought puts the artist on the
edge of social norms but at the
centre of human development.”
-Ascott

29. A new mythology for agency
This perspective evades mythological
notions of anthropomorphic interaction.
Networked robotic systems that use real
time MRDT expand autonomous robotic
interaction beyond traditional bio-
physical/electro-physical relationships
and are integral to understanding our
relationship with autonomous agents.
Adopting a syncretic approach to this
discourse allows for the inclusion of
social networks in dialogue concerning
social robotics.

30. Final comments
As art is fundamentally an articulation of the
human condition it can therefore be said
that syncretism is also a valid method for
analysing identity within the post-biological
discourse. If we are indeed post-biological
then we must exist in syncretic mixed reality
state. The hybridisation of augmented
reality and virtual environments with
physical/biological systems calls for a
rethinking of not only posthuman ideologies,
but also the way that cybernetic systems
function.

31. Julian Stadon
Curtin University of Technology
julianstadon@gmail.com