- Robot dogs with silicone masks of famous figures roam Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie museum
- The installation, Regular Animals, explores technology's role in authorship and cultural value
- Robo-dogs print AI-processed images of surroundings, distributed free to visitors
Robot dogs wearing lifelike silicone masks of world-renowned figures like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Kim Jong Un, among others, are currently roaming around at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie museum. The installation, titled 'Regular Animals', has been created by American artist Beeple to explore how "meaning, authorship, and cultural value are increasingly mediated by invisible technological infrastructures".
Apart from just wandering about, the robo-dogs occasionally 'poop' printed images of their surroundings, which they have previously captured using integrated cameras. These images are processed by AI systems that reinterpret the data according to the cultural, artistic, or ideological "style" associated with each figure. All of these prints are distributed free of charge to visitors.
"The work marks a new phase in Beeple's practice, expanding his engagement with artificial intelligence and digital culture into a fully immersive physical digital hybrid environment with robotics," the museum said in a statement.
"Through anthropomorphic figures of animals bearing the heads of globally recognisable personalities, Beeple creates a sociopolitical allegory of contemporary power structures. With this presentation, Beeple's work is shown in Germany for the first time."
Who Is Beeple?
Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, said his artwork, which first debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, shows how contemporary perception is shaped by algorithms and technology platforms.
"Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk own algorithms that control what we see and decide how we see the world. When they want to make a change, they don't have to lobby the UN, they don't have to go to Congress, they just make a change," Beeple said.
A prominent graphic designer based in South Carolina, Beeple is a pioneer of the "everyday" movement in 3D graphics. For years, he has been creating a picture every day and posting it online without missing a single day.
Earlier this month, Beeple deployed the robo-dogs on San Francisco's sidewalks. Clips of the 'Musk-bot' quickly went viral on social media, sparking both curiosity and unease as it navigated the city's streets.
