A(I)nimism: Re-enchanting the World Through AI-Mediated Object Interaction

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. Requests for name changes in the electronic proceedings will be accepted with no questions asked. However name changes may cause bibliographic tracking issues. Authors are asked to consider this carefully and discuss it with their co-authors prior to requesting a name change in the electronic proceedings. Use the "Report an Issue" link to request a name change. Do not remove: This comment is monitored to verify that the site is working properly