Digital Zoo
A networked media artwork exploring care, neglect and the emotional pull of technology.
Part social experiment and part social commentary on the absurdity of zoos, Digital Zoo explored a recurring theme in my work: how technology affects our emotions.
Gallery visitors were made responsible for the welfare of five LED Tamagotchi-like animals. They could feed, clean, play with and nurture them into adulthood by SMS, while neglect led to declining health and ultimately death.
The animals could also be monitored remotely via a Zoo Cam and responded not just to human interaction, but to sound and movement in the gallery, as well as weather, news sentiment and the economy. Each animal was modelled on aspects of its real-life counterpart, including age, weight, feeding times and lifespan.
Each animation was drawn in Photoshop and converted programmatically for custom LED matrices. The hardware was built before Arduino had simplified this kind of work, which meant teaching myself electronics, designing PCBs and wiring the system from scratch around Basic Stamp controllers.
One of the most interesting outcomes was behavioural: visitors became obsessed with interacting with the animals, while gallery staff developed strong protective ties to them. After six weeks all the animals had died and the exhibition ended. The lion, still king of the digital jungle, was the last to go.