Abstract
Creative AI technology (AI used in creative practices) is predominantly designed through human-centered approaches, and more specifically human-centered framing of creativity. Drawing on More-than-Human (MTH) design, in this paper, we argue for the need to shift from designing for human-centered creativity to designing for sympoietic making-with within situated ecologies, when it comes to creativity technology. We approach this through a relational, site-oriented design research inquiry that starts with a multispecies ethnography in a local ecology. Through this, we develop insights of more-than-human co-creation processes within the environmental ecology and bring these insights to a materialized form in speculative designs to examine them further. Subsequently, we examine the speculations through the critiques of human-centered conceptualization of creativity, providing an analytical tool for examining human-centered vs. more-than-human-centered notions of creativity in the design processes of creativity technology.
Keywords
More-than-Human Design; More-than-human AI; Multispecies Ethnography; Creative AI
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1902
Citation
Jääskeläinen, P., Boulton, L., Wakkary, R., and Russell, G. (2026) Shifting from Creativity to Sympoiesis: A Site-Oriented Design Inquiry of More-than-Human Creative AI, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1902
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
Shifting from Creativity to Sympoiesis: A Site-Oriented Design Inquiry of More-than-Human Creative AI
Creative AI technology (AI used in creative practices) is predominantly designed through human-centered approaches, and more specifically human-centered framing of creativity. Drawing on More-than-Human (MTH) design, in this paper, we argue for the need to shift from designing for human-centered creativity to designing for sympoietic making-with within situated ecologies, when it comes to creativity technology. We approach this through a relational, site-oriented design research inquiry that starts with a multispecies ethnography in a local ecology. Through this, we develop insights of more-than-human co-creation processes within the environmental ecology and bring these insights to a materialized form in speculative designs to examine them further. Subsequently, we examine the speculations through the critiques of human-centered conceptualization of creativity, providing an analytical tool for examining human-centered vs. more-than-human-centered notions of creativity in the design processes of creativity technology.