Meet our 2025-2026 artist residencies

10am – 11am Sous la peau des machines
Pulsed dialogues between body and neuromorphic robotics
Artists: Edwige Armand & Thierry Besche
Scientist: Constandina Arvanitis
Laboratory: LAAS – Research laboratory specialized in system analysis and architecture (CNRS), Toulouse

This collaborative project, at the crossroads of art, philosophy and science, explores bio-digital interfaces through neuromorphic chips and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The installation questions the reification of the body in its relationship to neuromorphic technologies, working with the transmission of hemodynamic information as a biological Morse code. The artists employ an interdisciplinary art-science-philosophy approach sensitive to the challenges of the quantified body, in dialogue with the piezoelectric sensors and microfluidic channels of LAAS.

11am – 12am Morphoïd
Low-tech soft robotics and biomimetic origami
Artist: Dewi Brunet
Scientist: Kanty Rabenorosoa
Laboratory: FEMTO-ST / AS2M (CNRS – University of Marie et Louis Pasteur), Besançon

Morphoïd develops low-tech biomimetic robots using origami and advanced folding techniques. A master of biomimetic origami, Dewi Brunet designs eco-responsible, battery-free, soft robotics inspired by the fungal and bacterial kingdoms. In collaboration with FEMTO-ST’s multi-scale origami robotics, the project explores active, reconfigurable, and deformable mechanical structures, questioning the boundaries between living and machine through a low-tech aesthetic and interspecies ethics.

2pm – 3pm Les mains dans la machine
Interactive machine tool combining manual handling and robotics
Artist: Olivier Gassies
Scientist: Claudio Pacchierotti
Laboratory: IRISA – RAINBOW team (University of Rennes, CNRS, Inria), Rennes

Olivier Gassies explores the phenomenology of making and the aesthetics of human-machine collaboration through the creation of a machine tool prototype combining manual skills and robotic techniques. The project experiments with the duality of hand and machine through real-time assisted material shaping, in dialogue with the haptic guidance and modified 3D printer technologies of the RAINBOW team.

3pm – 4pm Attuned Algorithms
Listening robotics and sensory attunement
Artist-researcher: Sorina Silvia Cîrcu
Scientist: Ludovic Saint-Bauzel
Laboratory: ISIR – IRIS team (CNRS – INSERM), Paris

Sorina Silvia Cîrcu uses contact improvisation as an interface for robotic experiment, where movement is transformed into sound via interactive haptic devices developed by the IRIS team. The project explores forms of intracorporeal resonance and kinesthetic empathy between humans and robots, incorporating biofeedback measurements. By involving blind dancers in the movement research protocols, the project develops new paradigms of interaction grounded in inclusivity and a new feminist materialism.

1pm – 2pm Tropisme
Organic robotics and textile crafts
Artist: Chloé Bensahel
Scientists: Gilles Bailly & Baptiste Caramiaux (to be confirmed)
Laboratory: ISIR – ACIDE team (CNRS – INSERM), Paris

Tropisme is developing a new hand-crafted technology that blends soft robotics and French textile expertise to create poetic interactions between humans and plants. The project explores a biomimetic approach that connects plant movements and human gestures through woven textile materials that mimic plant tropisms. Combined with the soft robotics, machine learning, and human-machine interaction technologies of the ACIDE team, Chloé Bensahel gathers her textile expertise and biomimetic vision to co-design robotic textiles that integrate traditional craftsmanship with high-tech sensors.

2pm – 3pm Reflections
Fleet of autonomous flying robots
Artist: Sean Hammett
Scientist: Jocelyn Monnoyer
Laboratory: ISM – Institute of Movement Sciences (CNRS – University of Aix-Marseille)

Reflections crée une oeuvre performative questionnant notre rapport au vent et aux ressources naturelles par une flotte de robots volants autonomes. Sean Hammett explore l’esthétique de l’énergie éolienne haute altitude à travers une performance sculpturale d’éléments volants. En dialogue avec les technologies de navigation bio-inspirée et de lumière polarisée de l’ISM, le projet développe des algorithmes de vol en essaim et questionne notre perception de l’environnement aérien.

Reflections creates a performative work that questions our relationship to wind and natural resources through a fleet of autonomous flying robots. Sean Hammett explores the aesthetics of high-altitude wind energy through a sculptural performance of flying elements. Combined with bio-inspired navigation and polarized light technologies from the ISM, the project develops swarm flight algorithms and questions our perception of the aerial environment.