As part of iMAL Projects Office 2026, Noah is selected for a FabLab experimentation Residency, where he's working on his project “(sex)toyBending”.

The jury, composed of the iMAL team, Anne-Françoise Lesuisse and Dia Helmy, particularly appreciated “the inventiveness, freshness, and freedom of the project, which promise experiments rich in uninhibited creativity” and considers that the artist “successfully combines seriousness and derision, depth and playfulness,” and is therefore well suited for a residency at the iMAL fablab.

"(Sex)Toy Bending is a project involving the creation of Fuck Machines using second-hand toy carcasses as raw material. This project was born from a search for playfulness in adulthood. It began with a simple question: Where does playfulness go as we grow older? How does something so central to our development become relegated to a «time-wasting» activity? Do we ever really stop playing?

I eventually realised that many adults reconnect with play through sex and fantasy. When I think about it, sex is a form of play. It is one of the most elaborate systems of play we have invented, with its own rules, codes, costumes, toys, and machines.

This led me to discover the fascinating world of Fuck Machines: a vast array of tools and devices becoming increasingly sophisticated and specialised. These machines are created by the fragmentation of the human body to only its most sexually desirable parts to serve the male gaze and reproduce unattainable body standards. As these technologies continue to evolve, a question inevitably arises: «Are we all meant to become sex cyborgs?»

In this project, I explore the augmentation of human sexuality through technology and the merging of the organic with the mechanical in pursuit of pleasure. To do so, I create my own sex cyborgs, assembled entirely from the carcasses of children's toys, combined with jelly and 3D prints, to bring these inert fuck-machines to life."

Noah Destrée is a 22-year-old queer Belgian artist completing a master's degree in Applied Arts in Vienna (die Angewandte). In his work, he addresses themes such as transhumanism, cyberfeminism, queer existence, and archiving. Blending different techniques, both digital and analog, his work combines serious subjects with absurdity. Through video games, drawings, animation, and more recently 3D printing, Noah creates fantastical worlds that question social structures, homogenization, lack of representation, and the seriousness of the contemporary art world.

With a degree in Digital Arts from ESA Saint-Luc and an Erasmus exchange at HAW (Hamburg), he began a master's degree in Fashion & Technology in Linz (Kunstuniversität) before joining Margarete Jahrmann's class at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. His work has been exhibited in various venues, including Young European Artists (Brussels), Botanica Urbana (Hamburg), PostCityLinz, and published in GlitchOfficial.

Anne-Françoise Lesuisse

Anne-Françoise Lesuisse holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Liège. She has been Artistic Director of the BIP (Biennale de l'Image Possible in Liège) since 2010 and Coordinator of the Master's program in Photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent, Belgium.

Dia Helmy

Dia Helmy is a creative practitioner with a poly-disciplinary approach, operating in the field of Art, Culture and Community. He dwells between stages, media-labs and gallery offices, carrying either tools, scripts, project budgets or prototypes in hand. He rarely produces works as a stand-alone artist, which encourages him to collaborate and co-create with people from many different contexts. He is the Co-founder and former leader of Medrar.org. His long trajectory of living and working between Cairo and various cities of Europe, eventually led to his settlement in the Flanders region as an anything design/craft-er, instruct/curat-or, and a volunteer in few community run hubs. He critically explores the sociopolitical dynamics around creative practices, to cultivate models of fair workflows and knowledge commons.