This study addresses the fundamental question of 'who creates' in AI collaborative design environments through Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). Using Harman's key concepts—'flat ontology', 'withdrawal', and 'vicarious causation'—as ...
This study addresses the fundamental question of 'who creates' in AI collaborative design environments through Graham Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO). Using Harman's key concepts—'flat ontology', 'withdrawal', and 'vicarious causation'—as analytical frameworks, this research examined Sougwen Chung's Drawing Operations Unit: Generation 1 (2015-2018) and MIT Media Lab's Silk Pavilion (2013), yielding three key findings. First, the creative subject in AI collaboration transforms from individual humans to networks co-constituted by human-AI-material assemblages. Second, humans, AI, and materials maintain their distinct characteristics while mutually influencing each other in collaboration. Third, this collaborative process generates emergent forms and expressions unpredicted by human designers. This study demonstrates that design creativity in the AI era shifts from human-centeredness to human-nonhuman cooperation, providing a theoretical foundation for post-human design practice.