This book develops the notion of automation as being mutually constituted by processes of change and metamorphosis. It seeks to stage and observe this encounter—the drive to control, capture, standardise, predict, and determine, set in a generative confrontation with the constant flux of things. 

The book takes a broad view of the concept of ‘automation’, encompassing repetitive and unassisted processes, as well as wider notions of the automatic, the autonomous and the self-governing, including ideas about agency and sentience. 

Woven through a series of case studies involving mechanical mouths, petrified wombs, controlled falls, agential neurotechnology, and archival listening, among others, the book posits automation as a mode of questioning that cuts a range of alternative axes through the categories of art, science, and technology.

Oron Catts is Associate Professor and the Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies, The University of Western Australia.

Sarah Collins is Professor at the Conservatorium of Music at The University of Western Australia.

Elizabeth Stephens is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland.

Ionat Zurr is Associate Professor at the School of Design, The University of Western Australia.