Pidgin Smidgen, a robot that does the street pigeon's mating dance when it sees a live pigeon. But using just a tiny bit of the pigeon body. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Pidgin Smidgen (2018-ongoing)
Black plastic robot Nevermore-A-Matic perched on a tree branch, silhouetted dark against the sky as it prepares to tell its next story to the ravens in the tree. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Nevermore-A-Matic (2016-ongoing)
A Whiskerer, a rat-reembodied as a robot that feels flowers with its face. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
A Whiskerer (2019-ongoing)
A Whiskerer, a rat-reembodied as a robot that feels flowers with its face. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Pigeon Princess at ARTIS Royal Zoo (2022)
Still from Fine Feathered Friends, where the robot, Cinderella, appraises urban pigeons. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Fine Feathered Friends (2019-2021)
Still from Dance of the Dirt Dwellers featuring Ziggy Dirtdust and On Beyond Lowly Worm. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Ziggy Dirtdust (2020)
Deep Steward, an AI that learns about ecosystems. AI art by Ian Ingram and Theun Karelse.
Deep Steward (2018-ongoing)
Elongate Evans, a robot that wants to be a real, live rat boy. Robot artwork by Ian Ingram.
Longing Evans (2018-ongoing)
Pigeon Smidgen, a reductive pigeon robot, makes amourous overtures towards a scrub jay in the tiny film Are You My Lover. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Are You My Lover? (2018)
Lichen on a rock in arctic Finland that is hatching a plan to send a robotic lichen robot to distant urban landscapes to attempt to locate the source of the pollution that is emanating from the south. Photo by robotic artist Ian Ingram.
Lichen Excursion Module (2018)
Marvelous Meat, a record of Nevermore-A-Matic's time spent in the pristine arctic environment in Kilpisjarvi, Finland, wherein the robot tries to tell ravens about the end of the world. Robot artwork by Ian Ingram.
Marvelous Meat (2016)
Doctor Maggotty is Anxious About The End, a robot that conducts funeral services for magpies. Animal robot artwork by Ian Ingram.
Doctor Maggotty is Anxious about The End (2015)
Lizardless Legs, a robot that uses a supernormal stimulus to dominate Western fence lizards in their territorial disputes. Animal robot artwork by Ian Ingram.
Lizardless Legs (2014)
The Gap Crack Gang, in which Nary a Yellow-Bellied Bluebelly tussles with a wily posse of Western Fence Lizards for dominance over this crack in the wall. Animal robot artwork by Ian Ingram.
The Gap Crack Gang (2013)
Danger, Squirrel Nutkin!, a multi-tailed robot usese computer vision and machine learning to detect squirrel predators--like dogs, hawks, and people--and then alerts the squirrels with a supernormal stimulus version of their tail-flagging alarm signal. Animal Robot artwork by Ian Ingram.
Danger, Squirrel Nutkin! (2009)
The Woodiest, a hermaphroditic, autoerotic, picinoid sexbot for woodpeckers. Animal robot art by Ian Ingram.
The Woodiest (2010)
Rock Bruisic, a robot that composes a bruise on the skin of a granny smith apple using two stones based off of its acoustic experience of the gallery it is installed in. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Rock Bruisic (2010)
In Nobody Told the Woodpeckers, the robot The Woodiest translates territorial drumming signals for closely related species of woodpeckers meeting for the first time in millions of years due to climate change. Animal robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Nobody Told the Woodpeckers (2010)
The Surly Bonds of Earthworms is lunar gravity simulator for earthworms that aspire to enter the space race and travel to the moon. Animal robot art by artist Ian Ingram
The Surly Bonds of Earthworms (2009)
In One Small Step, a small robot in an art gallery believes it is on the moon searching for extraterrestrial life. It is, however, just a baby moon boot taking puppeted steps on a lunar glove, its only sensors a range-finder in a half wiffle-ball dish. Robot art by artist Ian Ingram.
One Small Step (2009)
Lunar Excursion Module is a robot made of some baby moonboots, a slice of cheese, and a bit of wiffleball that fully believes it is on the moon looking for alien life, its imagined adventure in the shadow on a 10 foot circular screen. Robot art by artist Ian Ingram.
Lunar Excursion Module (2009)
Lunar Rover was an earlier, smaller version of Lunar Excursion Module and is a robot made of some baby moonboots, a small slice of cheese, and a bit of wiffleball that fully believes it is on the moon looking for extraterrestrial life, its imagined adventure visible as the shadow it casts on a transportable projection screen. Robot art by artist Ian Ingram.
Lunar Rover Prototype (2009)
You're Number One was a giant foam hand robot actuated with hydraulics and sat atop the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that tried to appreciate the city's pigeons by pointing them out and waving to them when they landed at various other foam body parts around town. Robot art by artist Ian Ingram.
You're #1 (2008)
Triptychlish is a sports fan's foam finger (the kind that says We're Number 1 on it) that has been made part of a triptych that is ticklish. The center panel has the actuated foam finger that can tickle. The left panel has the sensors that make the triptych ticklish, and the right panel has the speakers that giggle when the tickling finger tickles the ticklish panel. Robot art by artist Ian Ingram.
Triptychlish (2008)
As Seen on TV is a device in the shape of a cow's rear end intended to make a perfect life for houseflies. It is plugged into a wall outlet and the thin films are pulled off its two receptacles. The upper receptacle contains manure and fly eggs. At regular gallery temperatures these hatch and become maggots and then flies. The flies then find the other receptacle which contains a gelatin cake infused with milk and honey and they feast. Then the flies can have delightful lives, eventually laying their eggs back into the manure receptable and the cycle begins anew. However, no life is truly perfect without some adversity to overcome. Thus, when a gallery-goer claps their hands, the device flaps its tail swishing the flies away from their feast and nursery. Robot art by artist Ian Ingram.
As Seen on TV (2008)
The Ants and the Plastic Plant, a plastic plant rises from the grass with two dollops of jelly on its leaves. Separate species of ant follow different ways up the object depending on their shapes, sizes, and tendencies, finishing the sculptural symbiosis with their paths of bodies. Digitally-fabricated artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
The Ants and the Plastic Plants (2007)
Island hopping is a short story about navigating an invisible sailboat navigating an imaginary archipelago told by a robot. Robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram
Island Hopping (2007)
Close-up of the spread tail of Duck Duck Goose, which is made of duck feathers, in the gallery during the Rossum's group's exhibition Mechanosphere at the Three Rivers Arts Festival Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA. The robot's center section, made of goose feathers sewn together into a housing for the primary electronics, is also partially visible. Robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Duck, Duck, Goose (2007)
On Beyond Gosling, one of the two fluffy jumping bird babies in Birds Leap to Fly, in mid-leap as it is controlled by a woman on the street outside using the hand-prints on the store-front window. Robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Birds Leap to Fly (2007)
Stuttering Magpie Machine No. 1, an autonomous shadow puppet that is trying to beckon viewers to its nest in the woods. It speaks a human language but does so through its own alphabet rendered in shadows. To most it is perceived as nothing more than a gyrating assemblage of paper and wire, its pleading invisible. Robot artwork by artist Ian Ingram.
Stuttering Magpie (2006)
Whole Other Kettle of Fish (2006)
Piscatawamass (2006)
Little Old Me (2005)
On Beyond Duckling (2005)
Shrecktier (2005)
Tree Hugger (2005)
Machine Undine (2003)