Abstract

As culture and technology move forward, researchers from various fields have continuously developed new ways to create lifelike machines that evoke empathy and engagement with humans. This shared goal drives an enormous effort in the realms of arts, games, and social machines, among others. The present study's core research problem revolves around understanding how non-living devices gain a semblance of life and intelligence. The goal is to identify and examine the expressive components that induce the attribution of life into machines. The research follows the methodological framework of research-creation, integrating theory with creative processes. The theoretical framework's key findings establish the following four design elements for creating lifelike machines: Body, Behavior, Context, and Name. It examines how the articulation of those elements can assign different meanings to devices. In association with the theoretical framework, this study also involves producing two examples of lifelike machines within the realms of art and game design. The first is a robotic art installation called Robot Ludens, exploring possibilities and challenges for creating robots playing alive and playing dead. The other is a drawing game called Pict.io, which tries to simulate camaraderie dynamics between humans and computational players.