Soft Robotics is an experimental project led by the first resident artist of the Thinker Maker Space Artist-in-Residence program Marisa Satsia, that involved the design and fabrication of inflatable soft sculptures. These sculptures were made from flexible silicone which allows the flow of air to transform their shape and form, thus creating movement. Following the Soft Robotics toolkit by the Harvard Biodesign Lab, Fabricademy’s open tutorials and with the assistance of the TMS technicians, Marisa designed and fabricated her personal soft robots. Inspired by biodesign, nature, and the properties of living tissues and systems, the project is an early exploration of the potential and integration of soft robots in a visual and multidisciplinary art setting.
The project was developed as part of the Artist-in-Residence Program at CYENS Thinker Maker Space.
Marisa Satsia is a multidisciplinary artist, designer and researcher specialising in medical and biological arts. She works in the intersections of visual arts, design and DIY-Biology through biotinkering with biotechnology, biodesign and new materials.
She has a background in Fine art and Medical art studies and during her undergraduate degree she experimented with drawing, photography, sculpture, ceramics, microscopy, installation work, embroidery and printmaking. In the final year of her undergraduate course, Marisa focused on the intersections of art and science and on interdisciplinary visual research by collaborating with the Medical Science Institute of her university.
She also holds an MSc in Medical art from the Centre of Anatomy and Human Identification (University of Dundee). During this time she studied human anatomy through anatomical life drawing, sculpture, and cadaver dissection sessions in a modern dissection lab and attended facial reconstruction, 3D modelling, wax modeling and digital medical illustration techniques workshops.In 2020 she commenced creating her own online and in person workshops and classes related to Medical Bodies (2020, School of Machines, Making and Make Believe) and Creative biology (CYENS Thinker Maker Space, 2021). After her residency at the CYENS Thinker Maker Space in 2021, Marisa was awarded a scholarship to study at one of Fab foundation’s interdisciplinary programs in the intersections of biology, digital fabrication and textiles, fabricademy, at the Basque Biodesign centre, in Bilbao, Spain.