Toward <i>Relational Interactivity</i> : Investigating More-than-Human Engagement in Hybrid Museological Spaces

This paper investigates how interactive technologies can cultivate more-than-human (MtH) engagement within natural history museums when conceptualized as hybrid museological spaces. Responding to ecological and posthuman turns in HCI and museum studies, we present a comparative, in-the-wild study of five interactive prototypes – an AI conversational agent, an interactive visual narrative installation, a collaborative story-driven board game, and two augmented reality experiences (based on MtH interactions in the museum floor and outdoor garden) – designed to foster relational encounters between humans, technologies, and nonhumans. Drawing on qualitative data from seventy-one visitors, we identify six overarching themes that elucidate the experiential qualities through which MtH relations were negotiated, including nonhuman co-participation, situated ecologies of participation, affective-ethical entanglements, and narrative co-storying. Synthesizing these insights, we propose relational interactivity as a strong concept that shifts focus from individualized, system-centered interaction toward distributed agency, shared perceptual access, and ecological attunement, offering new directions for multispecies heritage technologies.