Deadline submission of interest: 23 December 2022
Open Call: VOJEXT S+T+ARTS Residencies
VOJEXT is about to revolutionise the manufacturing industry through robotics and arts. Are you up for the challenge? Apply for the Artist Residency! Three selected artists will each receive 30.000 Euros of funding, mentoring and access to robotics labs from March until December 2023.
Collaborative projects led by artists
The goals of the VOJEXT S+T+ARTS residencies are twofold: to push for art-driven innovation and societal understanding of human-robot interactions, and to integrate them in industrial manufacturing robotics that work on construction, arts and crafts.
The three VOJEXT S+T+ARTS residencies are designed as collaborative projects led by artists, guided by technology providers and where applicable use case SMEs and mentored by Waag Futurelab. Focus of the work lies with human-robot interactions in manufacturing companies. The collaborations follow the S+T+ARTS art-driven innovation model.
About VOJEXT
VOJEXT is a European project that aims to design, develop, validate and demonstrate robotic systems for industry.
About the residencies
Take a look at the three residencies and their challenge. The first two are hosted and tech-provided by Robotnik (Spain). The third is hosted and tech-provided by Fondazione Istituto Italiano Di Tecnologica (Italy).
Robotics in Construction (Robotnik)
This challenge focuses on developing critical, creative and new approaches to human-robot collaboration in construction. Main goal is to design safe and efficient interaction between human and robots for handling wide surface objects (like plaster boards or walls). Specific topic of interest would be experimenting with gripping, manipulating, mimicking hand-type end-effector that can support different surface treatment techniques. Understanding creative and intuitive movement, how such movement and patterns can be explored and modelled as interaction language between the robot and the human collaborator are some of the artistic and design research questions which might be of interest in this challenge.
> For artists who take an interest in architecture, urban design and robotics
Robotics in Arts and Crafts (Robotnik)
The second challenge focuses on the creative use of emerging robotic technologies. The goal is to enable arts and crafts practitioners to use efficient and safe collaborative robotic interfaces for remote production for small bespoke custom and or artisanal products. One could think of a robotic arm that uses gripping designs and collaborates collaboration with human workers, in small places. Artists are encouraged to think about social interaction with the robot, mimicking human movement when performing delicate movements
> For artists who take an interest in arts and crafts, teleoperation, haptic design and robotics
Social Robots (IIT)
The third challenge conducts social and ethical research to investigate and design social human-robot interaction in manufacturing space scenarios, modeled after real life SME sites. hypothetical, speculative or potential adoption. You are asked to think of wider social acceptancy by human collaboratrs, and design experimentation and interactive technologies for robots to work in small spaces. This includes thinking of wider challenges around the human-robotic relationship such as value, identity, co-habitation, equity, social and ethical acceptance and inclusivity.
> For artists who take an interest in social and ethical research, inclusion and human-robotic interaction
When & How to apply?
The application process has two steps.
1. Deadline for the submission of interest is 23 December 2022. Please write a brief project concept. Apply via the F6S platform
> Guide for Applicants
> Residency Open Call info
2. Deadline for full submission is 3 February 2023. Selected artists from the first round are invited to write full proposals with mentoring from Waag and the challenge hosts, with the deadline for submission on 3 February 2023. Take a sneak peak at the full proposal template. Note that full applications can’t be submitted yet!
Residencies will take place from March until December 2023.
Is this for me?
We invite all artists with an interest in robots in construction, architecture, arts and crafts to apply.
You will soon be able to register for an informative webinar on the residencies. Keep an eye on Waag’s website.
If you have any questions: don’t hesitate to reach out to our VOJEXT S+T+ARTS residency coordinator Zeynep Birsel: zeynep [at] waag [dot] org.
