The Robot as a Document for Action: Materiality and Corporeality in the Info-Communicational Approach to Robots

This article explores the emerging materialities of mediating artifacts in the field of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI). Drawing on the evolution of documentary environments and the growing hybridization of digital and physical spaces, it extends documentary and communication theories to robots taking into account their socio-technical dimension and their info-communicational implications for human interactions. It posits that examining the robot as a mediating artefact of a documentary nature can enhance both the understanding and the design of collaborative logic in HRI. Using Manuel Zacklad's theoretical framework, Documents for Action (DoPA), the research conceptualizes the robot as a semiotic and mediating document integrated into collective and collaborative practices. It analyzes robots-“dispositifs” through three interdependent processes—documentarization, editorialization, and redocumentarization—and offers initial reflections on the design of information and communication dispositifs that include mediating artifacts of a new complexity, as well as on the evolution of the theoretical apparatus.