Robot dog with Elon Musk face spotted in San Francisco |
A flesh-toned robot dog with an unsettlingly realistic face wandered the streets near Oracle Park in San Francisco on April 8, and the face belonged to Elon Musk. The android wasn't a glitch in someone's fever dream.
It was a deliberate street activation by digital artist Beeple, born Mike Winkelmann, to promote his upcoming exhibition "INFINITE_LOOP", opening April 18 at NODE, a digital art centre in Palo Alto.
What is Beeple's Regular Animals series?
In Regular Animals, the artist installs extremely realistic silicone heads made by professional mask designer Hyperflesh on the bodies of Unitree Go2 robot dogs. There are six characters featured in the work, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, and Winkelmann himself.
They have all been presented for the first time during Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2024. The San Francisco walkabout is the first occasion when one such robot has been released into the wild with "lost dog" posters spread about the neighbourhood.
Passersby stopped mid-stride. Local dogs were reportedly baffled. One encounter with a Waymo autonomous vehicle made the rounds on social media. Online responses split predictably – "terrifying" and "so wrong" from some, genuine laughter from others. That friction is, by design, the point.
"It stops people in their tracks and gets them talking," a NODE representative told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Sending Elon into the streets is a way to bring that energy into public life."
Each robot lives for three years, or 21 dog years, after which it dies officially. All the interactions and memories gathered throughout the process are stored in the blockchain, making the artwork live past its physical form and immortalised in the digital realm.
Winkelmann knows how to make headlines when it comes to selling digital art. Last year, "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" was sold at Christie's for $69.3 million, which made Winkelmann third on the list of highest-selling artists. "INFINITE_LOOP" will be exhibited until June 30th; admission every Saturday and Sunday is free.