Material agency and practice is the central organizing principal behind this axis, particularly the critical undoing of the human and nonhuman (beings and things) dualism (Latour 1987, Pickering 2006). This research cluster has identified three core subthemes:

New Life Forms/New Forms of Life (Mechanical, Biological, and Computational);
Making Culture (3D Particle Systems/Continual Modulations/Software/Games);
Lives of Things/Material Agency

Researchers predominantly identified with the first theme explore how technology blurs the age-old distinctions between life and non-life, organic versus non-organic and the born versus the made (Helmreich 2009).

Researchers focusing on the second theme explore the burgeoning “do it yourself” and hacker cultures across a diverse range of practices including Maker culture, Open Source software movements, independent DIY interactive textiles and the indi-game movement. Researchers associated with the third theme address issues related to “new materialism” (Coole and Frost 2011), “material agency” (Pickering 1995), and the power and dynamics implicated in the relative position of humans in relationship to non-human things and objects.