Nathalie Guimbretière
Design Researcher
Nathalie Guimbretière works at the intersection of design research, anthropology and STS (science and technology studies). She develops protean devices — installations, audiovisual performances, interactive systems, speculative objects — that question the boundaries between the living, the technical and the imaginary. Her current work focuses on creative and reflective processes between artists and scientists, within the fields of organic robotics, astrophysics and material culture.
She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at LESC (CNRS / Université Paris-Nanterre) within the PEPR Organic Robotics programme (ANR / France 2030), where she coordinates the Maison des Humanités Potentielles. She is also an associate researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Design (ENS Paris-Saclay / ENSCI), at the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (CNRS / Paris-Saclay) and a member of the Chaire Espace (ENS Ulm – PSL).
Nathalie holds a doctorate in arts from Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier III (2022). She has exhibited and performed internationally — Berlin, Montréal, Reykjavík, New York, Conakry, Syracuse — and is supported by Stereolux (Nantes). Co-founder of the collective Pronaos (Paris).
Her work takes the form of publications in academic journals in design and STS (ACM CHI, Academic Mindtrek, Revue Plastir, À l’épreuve...), practice-based research experimental devices (Protolexique, Tribunal des technologies, Cinémathèque des imaginaires techniques), immersive and performative installations (Cosmic Utopia, Laboratoire Arianna, Hi-brides, Eidôlon).
Themes
Technical imaginaries and design trajectories
Design research and practice-based methodologies
Art-science collaborations
Soft robotics and hybrid materialities
Anthropology of techniques
Current research
Experimental Devices
Publications Conferences
Teaching
Portfolio
HAL
Email
Conferences & Presentations
International conferences
2025 Reverberating Materialities. 4S Annual Meeting, Seattle, September 2025.
2025 Hybrid materialities of organic robotics and speculative topologies. Radiant Futures 2025, Université de Liège, October 2025.
2025 Entre ontologies fluctuantes et matérialités non-binaires. Les Corps Autres dans la BD, MSHS Poitiers / Angoulême, October 2025.
2025 Cartographies interstitielles dans les récits spéculatifs. Science-Friction, Université Bourgogne Europe, Dijon, October 2025.
2025 Objets possibles et narrations transitoires. Colloque Pierre Bayard, ENSCI, Paris, December 2025.
2025 Seuils critiques et topologies conceptuelles. Technocritique(s), MSH Mondes, Nanterre, March 2025.
2024 Fictional, Speculative and Critical Futures. Academic Mindtrek 2024, Tampere, Finland.
2024 Empirical Ethics in Action. EASST/4S Joint Meeting, Amsterdam.
2022 Actuated Materials and Soft Robotics Strategies for HCI Design. ACM CHI, New Orleans.
2019 Hi-brides. Colloque international Le cirque des humains et des animaux au travail, Montpellier.
2018 Le rivage des ombres. Les écologies du numérique #2, ESAD Orléans.
2017 Les dispositifs interactifs, entre jeu et narration. OMNSH, Paris.
Workshops & seminars 2025 « Habiter les zones de transition ». Le dur, le souple, le weird #02, MSH Mondes.
2025 « Neurocognition des processus de conception en design assistés par des outils d’IA générative». MODACT 2025, IPP / ENS Paris-Saclay (with S. Cheurfa, S. Lofti, P. Mavros).
2025 « En souplesse – Soft Robotics, Art & Design ». EnsadLab, Paris.
2024 Exhibition. Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux.
2020 « Point et ligne, tracking et temps réel ». SACRe / ENS Paris-Saclay / CRD.
2020 « Science x Design ». CRI, Paris.
2018 « Interactivité, dispositifs en temps réel et jeu vidéo ». Geek & Game Festival, Sorbonne Nouvelle.
2017 « Le détournement et le mashup dans le jeu vidéo ». Cycle Guy Debord, Montpellier.
Research disseminationCarnet Hypothèses « Maison des Humanités Potentielles » (2025–). Podcasts, methodological notes, workshop reports. mhp.hypotheses.org