Returning from POM Perth 2025, I find myself wrestling with questions that extend beyond the fascinating presentations on synthetic sentience and into the realm of how we build and sustain interdisciplinary communities. The conference offered remarkable insights into the evolving landscape of art-science collaboration, yet it also raised some concerns about how we might broaden participation in these conversations.

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One of the most striking aspects of the conference was the sophisticated theoretical framework that participants brought to their work. The prevalence of posthumanist theory, assemblage thinking, and more-than-human relationality created a rich conceptual foundation for exploring synthetic sentience. However, I wonder if our enthusiasm for these powerful analytical tools might inadvertently create barriers for potential contributors who approach these questions from different intellectual traditions.

The presenters demonstrated remarkable theoretical sophistication—references to Barad’s agential realism, Haraway’s situated knowledges, and Latour’s actor-network theory were woven throughout the presentations. While this creates productive resonances between projects, I’m curious about what perspectives we might be missing when our theoretical vocabulary becomes too uniform.

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The conference showcased the strength of existing collaborations—particularly the remarkable work emerging from institutions like SymbioticA, V2_ Lab, and the Shanghai art-tech community. These networks have produced genuinely innovative research and deserve celebration. Yet observing these well-established connections raises questions about how we might better integrate emerging voices and different institutional contexts.

The geographic clustering of participants, while understandable given funding realities and existing collaborations, suggests opportunities to think more systematically about outreach to communities working on similar questions but perhaps using different terminology or methodological approaches.

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Many presentations grappled with decentering human agency and exploring distributed forms of cognition—vital work for understanding synthetic sentience. However, I noticed a tension between the democratic impulses of these theoretical frameworks and the specialized language required to engage with them. This raises productive questions about how we might make these conversations more accessible without sacrificing intellectual rigor.

Perhaps there are opportunities to develop multiple entry points into the same conversations—ways of engaging people who encounter questions of synthetic sentience in their daily work but might not have the theoretical vocabulary currently privileged in academic contexts.

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The conference’s openness to diverse formats—from traditional papers to performance lectures to artistic interventions—was genuinely exciting. However, I noticed that many submissions remained somewhat vague about their specific methodological approaches or practical implementations. While this flexibility allows for creative experimentation, it also raises questions about how we evaluate and learn from different approaches.

There might be value in developing clearer frameworks for assessing speculative work—not to constrain experimentation, but to create more opportunities for meaningful exchange between different methodological approaches.

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These concerns emerge from admiration for what POM has accomplished. The conference has created a unique space for serious engagement with questions that matter enormously for our technological and cultural futures. The quality of thinking on display was consistently impressive, and the commitment to bridging art and science represents something genuinely valuable.

The questions explored at POM—about the nature of intelligence, the boundaries of life, the ethics of synthetic beings—are too important to remain confined to any single community, however sophisticated. As synthetic sentience moves from speculation to reality, we need the broadest possible range of perspectives to help us navigate the challenges ahead.

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The author participated in POM Perth 2025 as a reviewer and attendee.