[Themaintainers] 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]

Dear all,

We’re pleased to announce the next session of the SPT Maintenance and
Philosophy of Technology SIG on Thursday 13th August. In this session,
we’re excited to welcome Tamara Gupper who’ll be sharing her research on
the role of maintenance in the programming of humanoid robots for soccer
tournaments. If you'd like a zoom link for this talk, send me a quick email
at mark at markthomasyoung.net

Best,
Mark

Mark Thomas Young
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Oslo
https://uio.academia.edu/MarkThomasYoung

*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.
(In order to avoid confusion regarding the timing of the talks - the
following table clarifies when the talks begin in different locations:

New York:         13:00
San Francisco: 10:00
London:            18:00
Amsterdam:      19:00
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