Lancel/Maat

Art and science duo Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat (Lancel & Maat, Amsterdam) are considered pioneers exploring our sense of “togetherness” in our hybrid socio-technical world. The artists investigate how technologies shape our perception of shared embodied experience, empathy and care, intimacy and isolation, identity and privacy, control and trust, in entanglement with (non-)human others.

Our project Embrace Angels will explore how humans and robots can embrace each other. Two humans slowly approach and embrace two centaur-like robots, which transmit the sensations to both humans and participating spectators. Conceptually, the project explores bodily entanglement, the social meaning of touch, consent to touch, and how robots can recognise and mediate touch. The idea emerged from Lancel/Maat’s residency at Nottingham’s Cobot Maker Space in July 2023 and builds on our partner Alexis Block’s research into autonomous hugging robots.

Lancel Maat
Alexis Block at Case Western Reserve University