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
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Current Research
Morphogénèses techniques et écologies hybrides My research examines how the emergence of organic robotics — soft, biodegradable, bio-inspired materials — reconfigures the boundaries between the living and the technical. Working at the crossroads of design research, anthropology of techniques, and science & technology studies (STS), I investigate the imaginaries, practices, and vocabularies that arise when materials resist existing categories.

This work is grounded in ethnographic fieldwork conducted within French laboratories developing soft robotic systems. It combines practice-based research — the creation of experimental devices that function simultaneously as artworks, research tools, and speculative instruments — with theoretical inquiry into what I call “recalcitrant materialities”: emergent behaviours that escape the categories of control and autonomy.

PEPR Organic Robotics (O2R) Since 2025, I am a postdoctoral researcher within the PEPR Robotique Organique (ANR / France 2030), based at the Laboratoire d’Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative (LESC, UMR 7186 — CNRS / Université Paris-Nanterre). I coordinate the Maison des Humanités Potentielles, a platform that brings together researchers in robotics, biology, anthropology, design and art to explore the social, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions of organic robotics.

Workshops « Le dur, le souple, le weird » — Speculative exploration sessions on material thresholds in organic robotics, with roboticists, physicists, designers, artists and anthropologists (MSH Mondes / ENSCI)
Tribunal des technologies — A deliberative performance format substituting alternative criteria (repairability, hospitality, sustainability) for dominant ones (efficiency, performance, cost). First edition: March 2025, Lille. Second edition: March 2026, Paris.
Cinémathèque des machines — A curated corpus of industrial films, laboratory archives and demonstration videos (1950–2026), analysed through montage inspired by Aby Warburg's Atlas Mnemosyne. The collection reveals what these images show without intending to: background gestures, hesitations, failures cut during editing. 100 videos indexed, 3 critical video essays in preparation.
Cartographies des controverses — Mapping exercises tracing the actors, arguments and tensions surrounding organic robotics technologies. Following the tradition of controversy mapping (Latour, Venturini), these cartographies visualise how scientific claims, ethical concerns and imaginaries circulate and collide across disciplines.
Research Zines — Short-format publications produced collectively during workshops and residencies. Mixing fieldwork notes, speculative drawings, participant contributions and theoretical fragments, the zines function as both research traces and dissemination tools — circulating beyond academic formats.
Artist residencies — Coordination of 6 residencies across 5 French laboratories, supporting artists working with soft robotics materials
Carnet Hypothèses — Maison des Humanités Potentielles: podcasts, methodological notes, workshop reports (mhp.hypotheses.org)

Research axes Hybrid materialities and weird temporalities — How do materials that are neither soft nor hard, neither living nor mechanical, challenge disciplinary categories?
Technical imaginaries and speculative fiction — How do contemporary fictions (solarpunk, cyberpunk, speculative design) participate in the construction of sociotechnical imaginaries?
Research-creation and practice-based research methodologies — How can artistic devices function as research tools, generating situated knowledge about technological phenomena?

Previous research coordination 2024: Co-pilot, CMA Design France 2030 AMI « Design & Conception pour les Transitions ». Coordination of the research axis and the prospective work « Anticipation ». National diagnostic: 19 universities, 19 design schools, 18 engineering programmes.
2023–2024: Co-chair and general coordinator, International Conference [AD•REC] Limit/No Limit (Paris, January 2024). First French conference dedicated to art and design research, commissioned by the Ministry of Culture. 300+ participants, 22 countries.