Bringing Down the Curtain: Robotic Animals and Technologies of Aging

There are as many stories of ageing as there are people, but amongst the effects in this chapter’s ‘assemblage’ I highlight two ‘emergent properties’, following Jane Bennett, that provide connection and companionship—people and pets—to examine how the inclusion of technologies facilitate the ageing process. Focusing on what I am calling ‘technologies of ageing’—here specifically the Joy for All Companion robot-cat, and the speculative holographic technologies presented in Jordan Harrison’s play Marjorie Prime—this chapter, framed by my own mother’s experiences of ageing, addresses how these technologies take on an agential status, often in place of human companionship, within the larger mosaic of care that exists in caregiving communities.