"To Dust: A Memorial for Robot Vacuum Cleaners" Rosie Gibbens (UK)

Rosie Gibbens (UK) presents a performance from her ongoing series Technocreep, exploring the intersections of intimacy, labour, and surveillance within domestic technologies and robotics. Combining absurdity with speculative ritual, the work imagines a near future in which broken robot vacuum cleaners are mourned through elaborate funeral ceremonies and memorial objects cast from their discarded parts. Inspired by real accounts of owners forming emotional attachments to household robots, the performance reflects on how technological dependency reshapes human relationships with everyday objects. Through irony, dark humour, and ritualistic staging, the piece examines how emotional attachment and consumer technology increasingly intertwine.

At the same time, the work addresses growing concerns around surveillance and data extraction in domestic spaces. Reworking “found” audio imagined as recordings collected by a robot vacuum over its lifetime, the performance transforms private traces of everyday life into a haunting memorial soundtrack. Through irony, dark humour, and ritualistic staging, the piece examines how emotional attachment, consumer technology, and corporate data collection increasingly intertwine.

The performance was created in collaboration with dancers Lelde Beate and Sintija Skrabe.

The event is free of charge, but advance registration is required, RSVP here

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