[EASST-Eurograd] Talk: Tamara Gupper "The Art of Making Robot Soccer Last: Maintenance, Care and the Materialization of Futures" Maintenance Philosophy Technology SIG (13th August 2026 18-1915 UTC+1)
mark young via Eurograd
The Art of Making Robot Soccer Last: Maintenance, Care, and the Materialization of Futures.
Tamara Gupper (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main)
Thursday 13th August 2026
Abstract: Materializing robotic futures not only takes technological innovation, but also regular maintenance and care. This is one of the things I learned in my ethnographic and autoethnographic research with a team of computer scientists who program humanoid robots to play soccer. Their goal is not just to perform as well as possible at the next tournament, but to contribute to creating a robot team capable of beating the human FIFA world champion in 2050. In this presentation, I will look at maintenance not only as “the art of making things last” (Denis and Pontille 2025), but also as the art of making relations and practices last through time. To materialize futures of robot soccer in technologies, as I will argue, care is an “ontological requirement” (Puig de la Bellacasa 2012) of all the relations that sustain the practice of making robots play soccer again and again. Caring for and maintaining these relations is necessary because futures are not only regularly imagined, negotiated and materialized, but are also constantly at stake.