A(I)nimism: Re-enchanting the World Through AI-Mediated Object Interaction
Diana Mykhaylychenko, Maisha Thasin, Dunya Baradari, Charmelle Mhungu
TL;DR
The paper addresses the risk of human-technological alienation by proposing an animistic design lens for AI-enabled interaction. It introduces A(I)nimism, a portal-based installation that uses GPT-4 Vision, memory-based agents, and multi-sensory feedback to endow everyday objects with evolving personas. The key contributions are (1) a novel AI-mediated portal for human–object conversation grounded in animistic principles, (2) an interaction design framework that blends ritual structure with multi-sensory engagement, and (3) exploratory narrative techniques for shaping object personas. By foregrounding the opacity and interpretive potential of AI, the work demonstrates how re-enchantment of the mundane can provoke critical reflection on agency, responsibility, and design ethics in AI-infused worlds.
Abstract
Animist worldviews treat beings, plants, landscapes, and even tools as persons endowed with spirit, an orientation that has long shaped human-nonhuman relations through ritual and moral practice. While modern industrial societies have often imagined technology as mute and mechanical, recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI), especially large language models (LLMs), invite people to anthropomorphize and attribute inner life to devices. This paper introduces A(I)nimism, an interactive installation exploring how large language objects (LLOs) can mediate animistic relationships with everyday things. Housed within a physical 'portal', the system uses GPT-4 Vision, voice input, and memory-based agents to create evolving object-personas. Encounters unfold through light, sound, and touch in a ritual-like process of request, conversation, and transformation that is designed to evoke empathy, wonder, and reflection. We situate the project within anthropological perspectives, speculative design, and spiritual HCI. AI's opacity, we argue, invites animistic interpretation, allowing LLOs to re-enchant the mundane and spark new questions of agency, responsibility, and design.