As part of my PhD research, I make animated artefacts with soft and bio-inspired robotics materials, which has organic appearance and whose behavior is mechatronically programmable. I sometimes program the kinetic behaviors of these artefacts responsive to human affect cues (through affect sensing). By presenting these artefacts on or off the body in interaction with human, I explore the influence on human emotive experience brought about by these soft, intelligible matters.

The images and videos shown here are quick prototypes and work-in-progress.

I host workshops to invite participants interact and play with these artefacts and collect opinions and feedbacks. I am also open for collaborative research and projects with researchers and practioners in performance, affective computing, soft-robotics and social sciences. Please feel free to drop an email for a chat at: yan.zheng@network.rca.ac.uk.