Source: PortaldoBitcoin Original Title: Beeple launches robot dogs with Musk and Zuckerberg heads that generate NFTs Original Link:

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Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, has brought NFTs back into the spotlight at the Art Basel art fair with a group of quadruped robots that take photos of visitors and produce printed artworks through their rear ends, which also function as crypto collectible items.

The interactive exhibit, titled “Regular Animals,” is on display until December 7 at the Miami Beach Convention Center as part of Art Basel’s Zero 10 program for new digital works.

Each quadruped robot carries a silicone head sculpted based on figures from the worlds of art and technology, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Beeple himself.

The robots roam the space, their cameras capturing scenes from the fair, which are processed into stylized prints linked to the identity of each mask.

“We are increasingly seeing the world through the lens of how they would like us to see it, because they control these very powerful algorithms and have unilateral control over how we see the world in many aspects,” said Beeple.

The robots “will just take pictures and reveal these memories, which will be recorded on a certain blockchain, because I think that’s a great use for this technology,” he added.

The robots use a quadruped platform equipped with sensors, cameras, and a compact dye-sublimation printer that produces the images seen at the fair, with each unit modified with a hand-sculpted platinum-cured silicone head.

“It’s about an AI reinterpreting the images and what the humanoid is seeing. There’s an analogy: increasingly, we will see the world through AI,” Beeple said.

Artists and tech leaders, like those represented on the robot dogs’ heads, continue to “shape what we see, probably more than anyone else,” he added.

Each robot was sold for $100,000, except for the one with the Bezos head, which was not for sale during the VIP preview on Wednesday, when all pieces sold out.

The printed photos produced by the robot dogs contain a notice describing the artwork as having been “tested and verified as 100% pure, GMO-free and organic, sourced from the anus of an adult medium-sized dog.”

Beeple’s Art Projects

Beeple’s latest work arrives more than four years after the record sale of “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” in 2021, a digital collage of 5,000 images whose NFT fetched an impressive $69.3 million at Christie’s.

That auction placed Beeple among the most expensive living artists and helped propel NFTs to the center of a global market boom.

“I’m interested in crazy art projects that I simply couldn’t do before, but now I can,” Beeple said when asked how he plans to spend the money.

The NFT craze had cooled considerably by mid-2022, with volumes and prices dropping across most segments. At the beginning of 2023, there was still some demand.

“It’s crazy for me to think about that time, because NFTs were hated for much longer than they were loved,” Beeple said in October 2024.

In July of this year, industry analyses showed that NFT sales increased by 78%, largely due to lower floor prices, although at the expense of total trading volume, which suffered a quarterly drop of 45%.