Digital Zoo

Prof. Davide Riboli • Academy of Fine Arts "M. Sironi" of Sassari
1912 • First Phototropic Automaton

🐕 Seleno

John Hays Hammond Jr. & Benjamin Franklin Miessner

The selenium electric dog. Emulates Jacques Loeb's animal tropisms, mahogany chassis inertia, and relay logic in 1912 orthochromatic film.

Launch Simulation
1948 • Ultrastability & Homeostasis

🐙 Ashby

W. Ross Ashby (Homeostat)

A digital ecosystem of 4 cells linked by a weight matrix (4 × 4). Responds to environmental stress by randomly mutating connections until equilibrium is restored.

Launch Simulation
1948–1949 • Machina Speculatrix

🐢 Elmer & Elsie

W. Grey Walter

The famous autonomous cybernetic tortoises. Emulate the two analog neurons, Generative Art mode (chromatic trails), and the mirror self-recognition experiment.

Launch Simulation
1951 • Pavlovian Classical Conditioning

🐘 Cora

W. Grey Walter (Machina Docilis)

The Conditioned Reflex Analyser. Simulates associative learning and analog capacitive memory, allowing the automaton to anticipate danger from an auditory tone.

Launch Simulation
1959 • Parallel Retinal Computer

🐸 Taddeo

J. Lettvin, H. Maturana, W. McCulloch, W. Pitts

The frog's retina as a feature computer. Extracts fast flies (Bug Detector), leaves, suppresses fixed rocks, and reacts to predator snakes with the PIP monitor.

Launch Simulation
1986 • Emergent Artificial Life

🐜 Langton

Christopher Langton

A famous 2D cellular automaton demonstrating Emergence. From microscopic turn rules, a miraculous 104-step Highway 🛣️ spontaneously emerges after chaotic wandering.

Launch Simulation
1987 • Emergent Fish Schooling & Boids

🐟 Craig

Craig Reynolds

The famous Boids algorithm demonstrating collective flocking intelligence. 3 microscopic rules (Separation, Alignment, Cohesion) generate bioluminescent schooling fish and predator shark evasion.

Launch Simulation
2000 • Cybernetic Slime Mold & Network

🍄 Mushy

Toshiyuki Nakagaki (Nature 2000) & Jeff Jones (2010)

A brainless single-celled plasmodium. Auto-organizes ultra-efficient bioluminescent vein networks to connect food sources, solve mazes, and capture PNG generative artwork.

Launch Simulation