Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, has placed himself at the center of the pack — literally — with his latest viral installation at Art Basel Miami Beach, and there’s still time to see it through Sunday.
His “Regular Animals” project features $100,000 robotic dogs outfitted with hyper-realistic heads resembling Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos, alongside art legends Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. The robot dogs roam a plexiglass pen, capturing images through chest-mounted cameras that are processed by AI and then essentially pooped out, according to the WSJ. Of the prints produced, 256 include QR codes that offer collectors a free NFT, dispensed in bags labeled “Excrement Sample.”
Beeple also included himself in this exclusive group, a move the Charleston-based artist himself called “ballsy.” His self-portrait dog sold first, surprising even Beeple, he told the Journal.
The project marks at least the second time Winkelmann has become the art world’s main character. Four years ago, his digital collage sold at Christie’s for $69 million, helping to fuel an NFT boom that would peak a year later before largely imploding.