Mari Velonaki is a researcher and media artist who has worked in the field of interactive installation art since 1995. Her practice engages the spectator/participant with digital and robotic “characters” in interplays stimulated by sensory triggered interfaces. Her innovative human-machine interfaces promote intimate and immersive relationships between participants and interactive artworks. She was awarded a PhD in Media Arts at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 2003. In that year, she was also awarded one of the two inaugural ARC Linkage/ Australia Council Synapse Awards (2003-2006). In 2006 she co-founded with David Rye the Centre for Social Robotics within the Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney. In 2007 Velonaki was awarded an Australia Council for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship in recognition of her body of work. In 2009 she was awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship (2009-2013) for the creation of a new interactive robotic form. This research investigates human-robot interactions in order to develop an understanding of the physicality that is possible between a human and a robot. Velonaki’s installations have been exhibited widely, including: National Art Museum Beijing: Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art, Korea; ZENDAI Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh; Millennium Museum, Beijing Biennale of Electronic Arts; Ars Electronica, Linz; Biennale of Electronic Arts, Perth; Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art; Conde Duque Museum, Madrid; European Media Arts Festival, Osnabrück; Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand; Arco, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Queensland Art Gallery/GOMA; Art Gallery of New South Wales; Ton-Build-Spektakel, Zurich; Aros Aarhus Museum of Modern Art, Denmark.