Beeple Portrays Technology Executives such as Elon Musk as Mechanical Canines Sharing Their Viewpoints
At this year’s Art Basel Miami, digital artist Beeple unveiled an installation that is simultaneously humorous, unsettling, and oddly inevitable. His piece, Regular Animals, showcases a group of animatronic robot dogs adorned with hyperrealistic silicone masks of prominent figures who significantly impact our cultural and technological realms: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and even Beeple himself. The dogs move around, halt momentarily, and then produce printed images generated through on-site photography and AI.
The humor is immediate. However, beneath the ridiculousness lies a finely honed satire. Beeple draws our focus to the reality that much of modern existence is mediated by the tools and platforms developed by these tech titans. Our perception of the world, our news, culture, and communities, is filtered through algorithms crafted by a select few individuals whose shapes are now projected onto the bodies of robots. The dogs’ mechanical actions highlight this reality: they do not create meaning; they merely disseminate images, reflect the crowd, and expel content. The punchline resonates because it is uncomfortably accurate.
What renders Regular Animals especially engaging is its hybrid character. It transcends pure sculpture, performance, or digital art, embodying a blend of all three. By incorporating robotics, AI image processing, photography, printmaking, and NFTs, this installation operates as a living entity that produces its own output. It is art that inhabits a state of flux, mirroring the truths of a world where physical experience and digital creation are inextricable. Even the robots’ programmed “lifespan” contributes a poetic dimension regarding obsolescence in the rapidly-evolving tech industry.
The most ironic twist is how swiftly the robots were acquired by affluent collectors, each fetching approximately $100,000. A work intended to critique power and wealth is quickly assimilated into the very system it mocks. The prints, once straightforward punchlines, transform into sought-after artifacts. It’s a cycle that exposes the peculiar self-awareness of the contemporary art market: critique and commodity coexisting together, frequently indistinguishable.
Reduced to its core, Regular Animals presents a humorous, disquieting depiction of the world we inhabit—one where art, technology, and influence are closely intertwined. Beeple’s robot dogs not only satirize the figures they represent; they prompt us to interrogate the systems that convert both images and individuals into consumable items.
To stay informed about the innovative artist’s work, you can follow Beeple on Instagram (a social media platform owned by Mark Zuckerberg).