PJ Dick Innovation Fund Project Grant: Landscapes of More-Than-Human Temporalities
From Critter Connect, a project from Mathilde Gouin, Ph.D. candidate at the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon and the CMU Portugal program. Submitted as part of "Landscapes of More-Than-Human Temporalities"
Landscapes of More-Than-Human Temporalities
Project Lead: Daragh Byrne, Associate Teaching Professor, Carnegie Mellon Architecture
Project Team: Valentina Nisi (Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI) Portugal); Nuno Jardim Nunes (ITI & Técnico Lisboa - University of Lisbon); Zhenfang Chen, PhD-CD student; Mathilde Gouin, PhD student (CMU Portugal); Matteo Cappello, PhD student (CMU Portugal)
This project explores how artificial intelligence (AI) can mediate human experiences of non-human temporal scales in natural landscapes, addressing both climate change awareness and the critical role of AI in environmental futures. As climate change accelerates species decline and ecosystem transformation, this project develops interactive technologies that foster attunement to the multiple temporalities of other beings — from the acoustic rhythms of endangered species to the deep time of geological change.
Building on CodeLab’s Design for Collaborative Survival research and recent collaboration with ITI Lisbon on Critter Connect, this project develops three interconnected prototypes: 1) an AI-assisted audio landscape tool that reconstructs acoustic experiences from photographs to build awareness of species presence; 2) a More-than-Human Temporalities Probe deployed across Pittsburgh and Lisbon to document encounters with temporal cohabitation across seasons; and 3) a Deep Time Landscape Walk using AR and generative AI to create interactive narratives spanning geological timescales at natural heritage sites.
Through research-through-design methods and iterative prototyping, this work positions AI both reflexively — as implicated in climate extractivism — and as a tool for remediation and care. By designing encounters with uncomfortable temporalities of loss and decline, the project "stays with the trouble" (Haraway, 2016) to foster new forms of care for human and non-human beings. Expected outcomes include three working prototypes, scholarly publications at DRS 2026, C&C 2026, CHI 2027 and DIS 2027, and strengthened international collaboration with ITI Lisbon that will support two visiting PhD students in 2027.
Image: Image from Critter Connect, a project from Mathilde Gouin, Ph.D. candidate at the Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon and the CMU Portugal program.
About the Project Lead
Associate Teaching Professor & Lead of CFA Working Group on AI
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Established in 2023 by PJ Dick Trumbull Lindy Group, the Faculty Grants Program will award a total of $400,000 over four years beginning in 2024. The program supports faculty research and teaching innovations that address the School’s three pedagogical challenges of climate change, social justice and artificial intelligence. The proposals were assessed on their impact in furthering a faculty member’s research and teaching, their contribution to interrogating the School’s challenges, and their viability to garner further research support, make an impact on the discipline and expand the pedagogy of the School.