How can artistic approaches to artificially intelligent robotics contribute to new forms of kinship — of relation, care, and empathy — between humans and machines, so that care and wellbeing processes better respond to the complexity of human interaction?
Artificial Kinship is an innovative artistic research project that explores the synergy between art, technology, and care. Building on experience with embodied artificial intelligence (AI) in robotic art, the project applies this knowledge to redefine the complex and dynamic interactions within the care sector.
Traditional, rigid robotic systems struggle to engage with the human dynamics of caregiving, while the ethical principles that guide care practice often leave little room for the unpredictability of experimental approaches. Robotic art has a rich history of challenging scientific traditions within robotics. A recurring theme is the contrast between the flawless image of robots in controlled environments and their apparent helplessness in the unpredictable real world. This theme has gained both social and artistic urgency as expectations for AI applications continue to rise. To address this urgency, artistic research into AI requires greater exchange between, and development of, relevant practices. This project explores such connections and developments in the context of AI applications that more closely align with the often unpredictable realities of care situations.
The project is structured as a multidisciplinary collaboration in which students, researchers, care professionals, and artists experiment and engage in dialogue together. We investigate how artistic experimentation can contribute to the design of human-centered care systems. In doing so, we combine AI’s potential to support care processes with the insights from robotic art on the possibilities and limitations of AI in realizing artificial kinship: empathy, affinity, and connectedness between human, machine, and environment.
Artificial Kinship harnesses technology and artistic knowledge to help make care and wellbeing more resilient for the future. Its goal is to generate insights that enrich both the care sector and artistic practices related to these themes, fostering stronger connections between them. The results will be widely shared so that the knowledge gained can directly contribute to innovative approaches in education and in the practice of care and wellbeing.
The purpose of this scheme is to strengthen artistic and design research methods and the contribution of those methods to practice-oriented research on social themes. This strengthening is achieved through an equivalent partnership between universities of applied sciences and cultural institutions from the creative industries.
Ongoing research project (starting date October 2025, term 18 months)
Picture taken for Avans University of Applied Sciences by Angeline Swinkels
‘My practice explores how technology participates in relational embodied systems - how bodies, sensors, and materials co-compose stories of attention and response.’
My practice explores how technology participates in relational embodied systems – how bodies, sensors, and materials co-compose stories of attention and response. The question of what counts as kin guides this exploration, asking how we might create with, rather than merely through, technological systems.
Living in cities developed around data and acting within the inscrutable structure of our techno-society demands art and design that can help understand how we relate to these rapidly changing surroundings and to reflect on that relationship. The research group Situated Art, Design and Technology responds to this exigency by fostering a situated turn in art and design through a diverse portfolio of interdisciplinary research projects in partnership with academic and cultural partners, as well as with government and industry.
Read more
Thank you for your subscription! Please check your email inbox to confirm.