💫AMC Creative Synergy Seminar Series 02 💫

The Division of Arts and Machine Creativity (AMC) is excited to announce the second instalment of the AMC Creative Synergy Seminar Series, aiming to foster dialogue and innovation across disciplines through inspiring talks from renowned experts at the forefront of art and technology.

🗓️ Date & Venue
Jan 7, 2026, 4:30 - 5:30pm @ Room 4504 (Lift 25/26)

🔗 ZOOM link
https://hkust.zoom.us/j/95785314181?pwd=DUbCgbzvj9Hp9fgTCz54VIhoWg9SqI.1

🎭 Title
The Hybrid Turn: Designing with Living Matter and Machines

📑 Abstract
As artificial intelligence systems become increasingly sophisticated, they remain limited by human-designed sensors and human-defined parameters for understanding the world. Meanwhile, plants have evolved complex sensing and response mechanisms over millions of years—detecting chemical gradients, light qualities, mechanical stress, and environmental changes beyond human perception. What happens when biological sensing meets computational processing: plant physiology integrated with digital systems?
In this talk, I will present projects that create hybrid systems bridging living organisms and computational technologies. My work includes robots that navigate based on electrical signals from plants, nanosensors embedded in plant tissue that reveal environmental data inaccessible to conventional instruments, techniques for actuating plant growth through external signals, and electronics grown from organic materials. These plant-machine systems open new possibilities: machine learning models could be trained on plant physiological responses to detect environmental threats, predict ecological changes, or understand spatial navigation through biological rather than digital sensors. In Neither Here, Nor There, I explore this convergence directly—plants generate conversations about planetary politics through GPT-3, creating a speculative space where biological presence, artificial intelligence, and human interpretation collide and miscommunicate. By positioning plants not as passive biomaterials but as active sensing and responsive systems integrated with AI, we can develop design approaches that leverage biological intelligence alongside artificial intelligence, creating richer, more ecologically-grounded technological futures.
 

👤 Speaker Bio
Harpreet Sareen is an Associate Professor of Interaction and Media Design at Parsons School of Design, The New School (New York), where he directs the Synthetic Ecosystems Lab. He has held visiting professorships internationally at several institutions and most recently is a Visiting Associate Professor at MIT. Sareen earned graduate degrees from MIT Media Lab and The University of Tokyo. His research explores post-anthropocentric design, developing hybrid technologies that integrate living organisms with digital systems to reimagine human-nature relationships.
 
Sareen has lived and worked across six countries including Austria, India, Japan, France, Singapore, and the USA, with experience spanning Google Creative Lab, Microsoft Research, MIT Media Lab, Ars Electronica Museum, National University of Singapore, Keio University, Telecom Paris, and The University of Tokyo. previously a Fellow at the Berggruen Institute (Los Angeles) and INK Fellow (India). His projects include Elowan, a plant-robot hybrid that autonomously moves
toward light, and BubbleTex, which uses carbonation bubbles as an interactive medium. This work has earned prestigious awards including CHI Golden Mouse, Edison Gold, SXSW Interactive Innovation, MIT Technology Review Under 35 Innovator, and Fast Company World Changing Ideas.
 
His research has been published at premier venues like CHI, SIGGRAPH, and DIS, and exhibited internationally at Ars Electronica Festival, Somerset House, CID Grand Hornu, and MIT Museum. Sareen serves as advisor to venture-backed startups and has been consulted by government offices including the Abu Dhabi Executive Office. He regularly lectures at universities and innovation centers worldwide and has been invited to TEDx and INK Talks.