Department of Design

We live in a time when not only humans and other living beings perceive and act, but machines are also developing a life of their own and may even learn to act independently and intentionally. How can design and the arts, in dialogue with other disciplines, provide access to these often hidden, highly complex processes?

The group exhibition «REFRESH x Fantoche. Ways into Being» approaches the fragile moments—when something stirs, when life emerges, and when it first interacts with its environment—through games, digital playful experiments, sculptural installations, and video works, both with critical observation and with humor.

Featuring international artists such as Vectorpark, AATB, David OReilly, Studio Eidola, and Amanita Design.

In addition to the exhibition, there will be a talk on «Big Players» with AATB on 5 September. AATB treat robotics like a material—flexible, unpredictable, almost tender. The duo, Andrea Anner and Thibault Brevet, pushes industrial automation far beyond factory logic, transforming robotic arms into performers, collaborators, and sometimes awkward companions. Their practice merges engineering with choreography: software becomes gesture, precision machining becomes play, and human–machine interaction turns into a staged, slightly uncanny intimacy. By placing robots in everyday, non-industrial contexts, AATB reveal how deeply automation already choreographs our movements and desires.

REFRESH x Fantoche is a collaboration between the Department of Design and the Immersive Arts Space at Zurich University of the Arts with Fantoche.