Meet the researcher: Dr Marilia Lyra Bergamo

This month we explore the role of humanities and social sciences in smart sensing research.

Dr Marilia Bergamo is a computer artist and a lecturer in Design and Digital Art at the University of Newcastle. Her research focuses on the intersection of art and technology, examining how sensors play a fundamental role in the interactive processes of physical interfaces. She has created artworks – including an award-winning robotic plant based on a native tussock grass, the knobby club rush – which explore the relationship between interactive computational art, interaction design, and the development of multimodal interfaces. Since 2012, her work in experimental interaction has incorporated the concept of evolutionary artificial systems.

Tell me about your work and how it involves sensors. How did you get involved in this area, and why?

Dr Marilia Lyra Bergamo in front of her Knobby Clubrush work. Credit: Supplied

In 2004, I had my first encounter with an interactive installation in Sydney, and I was captivated by the chance to engage with graphic abstract symbols. These symbols were familiar to me from magazines, books, posters, and other graphic design products. Unlike interactive interfaces on monitors or the web, I didn't have to rely on keyboard shortcuts, memorise complex commands, or limit myself to point-and-click interactions. It felt magical to wave my hands and watch graphic elements respond in real-time or step close to a wall and see data transform. This experience was not just a movie; it was real life.

With a software engineering and graphic design background, my industry experience has primarily centred around digital screens. However, when I first ventured into physical interaction design, I quickly realised that this knowledge alone was insufficient. I learned that achieving successful physical interaction depends on two key factors: how you gather data from the surrounding environment and how that data is represented within the physical space where you will implement your reactive computational system.

The Knobby Club Rush (pictured) is a native tussock grass which was the inspiration for Dr Bergamo’s award-winning Knobby Club Rush A-Life System. The work simulates plant intelligence and creates a sensing framework based on a computational agent perspective.

That was when sensors came into the picture. They served as the eyes, ears, and skin—providing a range of non-human sensitivities that prevented my body from being limited to a two-dimensional world. They also allowed me to explore things my senses would never be able to feel and to contemplate data from various forms of life and non-life. This was a poetic revelation. I now realise that sensors have long been revealing the world of extended human culture, demonstrating that we are far from capable of relying solely on human perception, and that is truly enlightening.

What can researchers using smart sensors learn from your research?

Creativity is not an isolated act where individuals sit alone in their rooms waiting for inspiration. Instead, it involves actively trying new things, exploring what has already been accomplished, and identifying changing circumstances that will lead to the next transformation. To drive innovation, interactive designers and artists explore the space surrounding the situations they want to change and examine the evolution of the technologies relevant to those conditions. Sensors form the basis of these conditions for interactive innovation; they represent the evolving environment and provide stable circumstances for artists and designers to focus on the interactive process.

Additionally, culture plays a crucial role in interaction. People engage based on their cultural perspectives and individual learning processes. Sensors also represent stable and reliable data derived from previous research. They serve as a cultural reference point for establishing specific types of data capacity. Therefore, for interaction to be truly effective, it needs to take into account this stability and the local contexts, as these factors significantly influence people's curiosity to try something new or to avoid it.

What's been your most rewarding achievement or moment in your research career?

The most rewarding achievement was when my production was recognised by both the International Society of Artificial Life and the contemporary art community. This is a significant accomplishment because art, science, and technology usually translate knowledge from one field to another. Being acknowledged in both areas without this translation is quite rare.

What more are you hoping to achieve in your career?

I hope to have more flexibility to showcase my work more frequently. I also would like to experiment more and take on projects where the perspective of speculative life and design is central to future development. I am currently working in this direction and intend to focus my energy on finding ways to maintain this approach consistently.

Why is what you do important?

Creativity drives the world, and speculation inspires solutions. Creating interactive systems and artificial life can demonstrate not just how the world is but also how it can be transformed. Inspiring people is crucial, as it is what creates transformations.

Could you describe the purpose of your Knobby club rush work? How does it use smart sensors, and how can others in the smart sensing community could learn from this work?

The Knobby Clubrush A-Life System was developed as a proof of concept to simulate plant intelligence and create a sensing framework based on a computational agent perspective. It detects the wind and sound around each stem, using data collected from a gyroscopic sensor and a microphone, which allows it to take actions based on the data from other stems within a small community of agents. This robotic plant utilises sensory data to determine when to grow. Additionally, this data can help improve the design of the small 3D printing structure for future generations of the robotic plant.

This work focuses on speculative robotics, with the primary goal of inspiring inventors to utilise sensors within small-world communities composed of computational autonomous agents. It challenges the conventional design of having a single structure responsible for all data processing. Instead, the idea is to empower each small sensor with its autonomous computational capabilities, enabling it to collectively achieve a decision-making process that provides a significantly different order of magnitude of the data.