This is not Old MacDonald’s petting zoo. There are no chicks to cradle or horses to brush. Instead, the London-based Minimaforms’ latest exhibit, “Petting Zoo,” has visitors playing with robots that look like slinkies suspended from ceiling lights. The exhibition is currently hosted at the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France.
Theodore Spyropoulus, who both founded Minimaforms and worked on this exhibit with his brother Stephen, said that “Petting Zoo” plays with the idea of an intelligent environment. “The exhibit was an opportunity to try and find ways to animate a space that participates with people,” he told ABC News.
The exhibit itself consists of three separate “pets,” as Spyropoulus calls them. “If an individual comes into their space, they will orient themselves to acknowledge him or her,” he said. “They make curling movements to bring the individual closer together.”
The pets start off as being inherently curious and learn to adapt to a variety of different human behaviors. For example, the pets may be friendly when only one or two people approach them, but become anxious if they see too big of a crowd.
Read also:
Robotic petting zoo "animals" touch you back (CBC.ca (blog))
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