Rituals and Robots
Rituals and Robots is a new project being developed by the artist Rachel Jacobs in partnership with Dr Alan Chamberlain and the Robo-Humanities project at the University of Nottingham (Somabotics: Creatively Embodying AI), University of Nottingham School of Computer Science, UK HRI .
Rituals and Robots brings people together to explore the twin existential crisis of climate change and the impacts of digital technology (including AI).
Through a process of research & development the project investigates how rituals and robots might help us thrive in the future, creating:
- 3 new interactive ‘slow’ sustainable artworks, each acting as a ‘totem’, ‘punctum’ or ‘trigger point’ for public interventions and convivial gatherings
- An online space and a critical network to share ideas & positive visions of the future that can inform future engineering and technology design and policy.
- A touring exhibition, public workshops & interventions that invite people to creatively engage with design of sustainable, nature-connected, seasonal and longitudinal rituals and robots. Responding to the question ‘what rituals and robots do we need to thrive in the future?’
In partnership with the Robo-Humanities Project we are developing a Rural Robots programme across Cumbria, Ceredigion and Cornwall, conducting workshops and interventions that explore the themes of kinship, pilgrimage and the collective dreaming of speculative futures, that will inform a touring exhibition to each place.
Public Workshops
Rachel will be running some pilot workshops to explore Rituals and Robots and the themes of this project in Nottingham, London and Cumbria.
The dates, times and venues will be updated here as the programme comes together.
Coming Soon:
How We Dwell With Rituals and Robots: Creating a World We Can All Inhabit
Thursday 14th May 2026, 6.30pm – 9.30pm
Location: Space 4, 2nd Floor, 113-115 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, N4 3HH
Cost: A donation is suggested of £5 – £10 to cover the soup and material costs of the workshop but it is up to your discretion.
An intergenerational workshop that explores life, legacy and the different ways we can thrive, now and into the future. Bringing people from different generations together in the same room, to look at how we dwell; how we move ourselves through space; how we think about our bodies, how we think about rootedness and belonging, borders, time, landscape and place. Facilitators Rachel Jacobs and Rose Levinson will lead a series of activities to explore how traditional tools of storytelling, ritual and myth and our new tools of robots and digital technology might help us counter societal assumptions about how we think about ourselves in the world. Book now on eventbrite.
Previous Workshops:
An Introduction to Rituals and Robots
Thursday 5th March 2026, 6.00pm – 9.00pm
Location: Space 4, 2nd Floor, 113-115 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, N4 3HH
An introduction to the Rituals and Robots project. Inviting people to meet around the table at Space 4, a small group gathered to think together about what we need to thrive in the future and make robots using arts, crafts and technology.
Rituals and Robots Drop In Workshop
Location: Primary Studios, Studio A11, 33 Seely Road, Nottingham NG7 1NU, Saturday 25th October, 10am – 1pm
Rachel invited people to join her around the table in her studio at Primary, to think together about what we need to thrive in the future.
