A Clean Kitchen by Bruno Brissa and Hai Shihao, Konstfack
The festival is organised every October by NAVET, KTH centre for art, technology and design, together with Tekniska museet. It gives students from NAVET’s partner institutions a chance to present newly made work to the public, outside their regular studies. Each selected team is supported by supervisors from KTH and the museum, including technicians and curators. Earlier editions explored the themes Skogen and Space.
A guided tour starts at the café at 17:45.
Check this page for the schedule and information about tickets: www.kth.se/sv/navet/for-students/navet-student-festival/dream-ex-machina-1.1486612
This year’s theme, Dream ex Machina, takes its cue from the museum’s own Drömlandet exhibition which focuses on Sweden’s dreams of new futures through technology in the last 200 years. Playing on the Greek theatre device “deus ex machina”, where an unlikely event suddenly solves an impossible problem, Dream ex Machina asks whether our technological dreams can go beyond efficiency and automation to dream about humanity's current and future condition.
Seven projects are on show, spanning installations, interactive pieces and screenings in the Wisdome.
A Clean Kitchen (Bruno Brissa and Hai Shihao, Konstfack) is an installation featuring robotic arms that likens automation to cleaning, a pursuit of perfection that can never be completed.
It is a robotic installation featuring two mechanical arms engaged in the seemingly endless task of cleaning one another. Through this absurd interaction, the artists draw a parallel between cleaning and automation: both are driven by a continuous pursuit of improvement, efficiency, and perfection.
The project proposes that cleanliness is not a state but a direction. As one layer of friction is eliminated, another inevitably emerges. By turning automation back upon itself, the installation questions the promises of technological progress and invites visitors to reconsider our relationship with control, productivity, and the imperfections of everyday life.
All Movements Are Welcome (Jiayi Wu, KTH; LEO, SKH) is an interactive installation using body tracking, AI analysis, text generation and voice feedback.
If Not This, Then… (Alric Monteiro and Hemangi Shrivastava, KTH) is a participatory installation where visitors knot fabric strips together, building an artwork that grows more entangled with each visitor.
PianoAutomata (Yue Zhu, KTH) is a "ghost piano" that visitors can pose questions to and it responds without sound.
Sounds of the Soil (Marie Schön and Bente de Bruin, KTH) is an interactive textile installation combining photography, embroidery and mycelium objects, with sound and haptic feedback.
Where We Meet in Resonance (Tse-An Shih, KTH) is a sonic installation that turns visitors’ proximity into sound.
Step by Step (Xélia Froidevaux and Elodie Mirza, SKH) is a seven-minute 360-degree trapeze film, screened in the Wisdome.