FTI Brussel x VUB: What if robots could move us?

Step into a world where robots, puppets and soft machines seem to come alive during an exhibition tour and performance at FTI Festival.

Artistic researcher Laura Vandewynckel works at the intersection of film, theatre and visual arts. The Parliament of the Pitiful is the final outcome of her doctoral research at RITCS School of Arts and Vrije Universiteit Brussel. In the exhibition, she brings together mechanical puppets, robots and kinetic sculptures. Her work draws on stories of scapegoating, both old and contemporary, but reverses the perspective. It is not the majority that speaks, but those who are usually denied a voice: the scapegoat, the animal, space debris or another excluded being.

Ugo Dehaes also explores moving bodies, but from the perspective of dance. After twenty years of working with dancers, he began building robots. He became, as he describes it, a choreographer of things. In Soft Tissue, created in collaboration with VUB, Dehaes combines dance, technology, puppetry and humour. Seated around a large table, the audience watches up close as soft robots move, search, fail and perhaps even touch us.

Together, these two artists reveal another side of technology. The focus is not on the smart or efficient machine, but on the moment when an object gains presence and seems to ask something in return.

Programme

The programme takes place twice. Please select one of the two available time slots when booking your ticket.

• Time slot 1 | 17:30 - 19:00
• Time slot 2 | 20:00 - 21:30

BOOK YOUR TICKETS HERE