Center Stage Robotics: A Collaboration between Ulrike Quade Company, Creative Robotics, and Utrecht University.

Center Stage Robotics is a collaboration between Ulrike Quade Company, Creative Robotics (programmer Rick van Dugteren and visual artist Bram Ellens) and Utrecht University. It consists of multiple research trajectories in which we explore the possibilities and potential of industrial robots in a performative context, as well as what findings and their creative processes in turn have to offer to the field of (creative) computing, programming and robotics. The project is funded by the project Innovatielabs, through which Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industrie and ClickNL stimulate innovation and interdisciplinary collaborations in the creative field.

Between summer 2023 and december 2024 we will conduct research into the encounter between performingartists and (industrial) robots in several ways. There will be explorative research sessions in the robotlab in Almere, multiple open calls for artists in residency, roundtables on mapping and archiving a creative and technological process, expertmeetings “Future Stages” where makers, thinkers, designers, scholars from Utrecht University, creative technologists and other nerds exchange experiences and ideas. The project also aims to develop a prototype for an open source database or platform for technological processes by and for performing artists, makers and experts. Utrecht University offers the scholarly backbone to the project with knowledge on transdisciplinary collaboration and (techno) dramaturgy as well as mapping, archiving and curating data from creative processes. Works and results coming out of Center Stage Robotics will be presented at Dutch Design Week 2024.

Read more about the open call here.