Ⓒ Ugo Dehaes
The Soft Side of Robotics @ FTI Festival
Robots are becoming increasingly present in our lives. Many are built to outperform the human body – moving with a speed, strength or repeatability we cannot always match. Soft robots and mechanical puppets trade that precision for a softness allowing them to interact safely with us. Through that softness, they also reveal a fragility that makes them mirrors for our own bodies. What remains human when machines begin to share our vulnerability?
Join robotics professor Bram Vanderborght (VUB & imec), choreographer Ugo Dehaes (Kwaad Bloed) and artistic researcher Laura Vandewynckel for a conversation about how robots are changing the way we think about our bodies, our limits and what it means to be human.
The talk is preceded by a try-out of Soft Tissue, Ugo Dehaes’ new performance in which soft robots move, search and fail. What happens when a machine no longer appears efficient and powerful, but fragile, uncertain and in need of attention?
PROGRAMME
15:30: Try-out of Soft Tissue
16:00-17:00: Panel discussion with Ugo Dehaes, Bram Vanderborght and Laura Vandewynckel, moderated by Sandy Snoeck.
TICKETS
Admission to this session is included in the day ticket for the Shifting Worlds exhibition €9.90 (-18y and students) or €16.90.
PART OF
This session, organised by VUB Crosstalks, is part of the Shifting Worlds exhibition at WIELS and the Brussels programme of Flanders Technology & Innovation Festival (FTI), an initiative of the Flemish Government running from 16 to 20 October.
Ugo Dehaes started dancing at the age of eighteen. One year later, he was admitted to PARTS, the renowned dance school founded by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. In 1998, he joined Meg Stuart’s company Damaged Goods, where he worked as a dancer for three years. In 2000, together with Charlotte Vanden Eynde, he founded the company kwaad bloed. In the years that followed, he created a new dance performance every two years. Around 2018, Ugo took a radically new direction: he became a choreographer of things. He learned how to build and choreograph robots. Alongside several installations, this period also saw the creation of the internationally successful productions Simple Machines and Moving Skin.
Laura Vandewynckel studied Language and Literature at Ghent University and dramatic and audiovisual arts at RITCS School of Arts Brussels. Her stop-motion film Paradise (2014), a playful yet critical reflection on ‘ethical’ tourism, was selected for La Cinef Cannes and TIFF. With the Sifnos Award La Cinef, she created Pharmakos (2017), documenting a collective reenactment of the Greek Pharmakos ritual with inhabitants of Sifnos. Her animated short Le Crépuscule (2023), on the impact of nightmare news on the collective mind, is touring international festivals.
Laura has written and directed theatrical works including A modest contribution (2018), on good intentions with bad consequences, and participatory performance Stick Together (2021), inspired by stick games, dances, and fights. Her production, Lost in LEO (2023), is a puppet performance about impact and climate change from the perspective of space debris. She teaches at RITCS and is completing a PhD on automata as activist tools.
Bram Vanderborght is Professor of Robotics at VUB and a principal investigator at imec. His research focuses on safe human–robot interaction, self-healing materials and adaptive actuators. Vanderborght coordinates several European research projects on self-healing soft robots, bringing together new materials, robot design and circular manufacturing. His work explores applications in care, rehabilitation and industrial robotics, with a particular focus on sustainability and repairability.
Sandy Snoeck has over 10 years of experience as a keynote speaker, chairperson and panel moderator. She prefers to speak about sustainability, impact-driven entrepreneurship, social engagement, innovation and international politics. Alongside her own company, Sandy teaches part-time in the Idea & Innovation Management bachelor's program at Howest. Thanks to this combination of entrepreneurship and teaching, she stays closely attuned to technological developments and innovations.
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