The innovation plan

Theater as testbed for the robot revolution.

“If, as Shakespeare famously claimed, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”, robots are the new kids on the block.”

Prof. dr. Maaike Bleeker (Universiteit Utrecht)

Yesterday’s puppets are tomorrow’s robots. Together with experts, Ulrike Quade Company maps the influence of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) on humanity. Are robots, AI and smart applications still our instruments? Or are we ourselves increasingly the marionettes of networks and tools that we created ourselves? Quade uses her expertise in imagining humans and objects (puppets) to investigate these shifting balances, in two multi-year studies. The innovation trajectory is supported by NWO and the innovation subsidy of the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.

Acting like a Robot

Ulrike Quade Company is collaborating with Utrecht University, the HKU University of the Arts and the VU University Amsterdam on a multi-year research project about the use of robotics and its impact on society.The results of this research will be presented annually at SPRING Utrecht. Read more…

The Technostalgia Research Lab

In her shows, Ulrike Quade Company utilises the newest technological developments. Working with technology poses moral as well as practical issues that deserve to be investigated. Several organisations, artists, thinkers and initiatives are occupying themselves with comparable questions. With the Technostalgia Research Lab we offer a communal space for these explorations.

“For the past seven centuries we’ve increasingly been pushing away the magical and the mythical of the experience of our modern world, but with the advent of multimedia such as games and robots that start looking more and more like the robots from science fictions, the magical is on the rise again. With these new expressions and creatures that we encounter in our worlds ever more, our world is becoming magical again.”

Prof. dr. Koen V. Hindriks (VU Amsterdam)

A Robot Walked into the Theatre

“A robot walked into the theatre…” is the virtual kick-off of Acting Like a Robot: Theatre as Testbed for the Robot Revolution. The short film was made for virtual festival SPRING on screen.

Video by Ulrike Quade, The Transketeers & Floriaan Ganzevoort

The innovation plan

“If, as Shakespeare famously claimed, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”, robots are the new kids on the block.”

Acting like a Robot

The Technostalgia Research Lab

A Robot Walked into the Theatre

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