Between Two Waters- Edinburgh Future Institute. The performance is part of The Futures Conversations series – Shaping our AI Futures – and explores the delicate and intricately evolving relationship between humans and machines. Danced and Choreographed by Madeline, as well as a collaborative effort between the University of Edinburgh and the University of Lille INRIA Centre and is brought to life by an interdisciplinary collective of scientists, roboticists, and designers: Alexandre Colle, Designer in Residence for Design Informatics, Camila Jimenez Pol, multidisciplinary designer and head of product at Konpanion, as creative directors, and Ruby Marshall, Lecturer in Soft Robotics and musician, as music and sound director. Their collaborative work enhances the multi-disciplinary nature and explorative narrative of the project, inviting the audience to be fully immersed within the performance environment. The production of the performance benefits from the technical expertise of engineers Spyridon Vlachos, Yordan Ysvetkov and Mark Kobine and the costume design by Kyle Cheldon Barnett.

Through a dynamic dance between a dancer and a soft robot as the focal point. The representation of robots in art and media is often limited to their portrayal in science fiction, but this performance aims to challenge that narrative by depicting robots in unconventional, non-technological forms.The performance delves into the complex process of human-machine coexistence and understanding, exploring the relationship between the dancer and the robot as one of continuous learning, acceptance, rejection, and reunion. Through this process of navigating each other’s spaces and understanding their unique capabilities the audience is offered a powerful metaphor for how humans and machines can learn to coexist and accept one another in the world.

Photos by Lesley Martin