We started out with two objectives in mind: to define ZooXXI and create an interactive exhibit that spoke to that definition. We started to think about the Zoo of the 21st century as if it was an institution we were founding, in terms of its mission, its vision, and its guiding principles. We have a diverse, international team, and our own daily experiences with animals, or lack thereof, played into how we approached the topic.
Our research into zoos and technology, and how the two might come together, left us with an ever evolving set of questions. We explored these questions by designing and prototyping several experiences. Initially, we pursued the idea that ZooXXI should act as an intermediary between the human and natural worlds. We built a prototype of an ecosystem, one that modeled human development’s effects on nature. Guests would be in charge of maintaining the balance between a forest environment and their own needs in the city. The exhibit, aware of each guest’s presence, would demand a series of actions in which each action would spark a reaction in both forest and city.
We liked this vision of the world and the idea of creating an installation that would challenge people to create equilibrium within, and, hopefully, outside of, its space. However, we decided to move on in a direction that put the focus more centrally on animals themselves. We went back to our research, and created a prototype for an interactive timeline of the human relationship with animals throughout history. We imagined an animated timeline unfolding over the length of several mirrored screens. In this way, guests could walk through the history and, in effect, be a part of it by seeing their own reflections.
We found this idea of playing with how we see ourselves and animals intriguing, and began to notice that much of our research also focused on this issue. Eventually, we decided to focus on the question posed by the title of John Berger’s seminal essay, “Why Look at Animals?”
Zoos reflect our attitudes towards the animals they house, and how we view animals physically often defines our view of them philosophically. From which vantage point do we see the animals? Are we looking down at them? Up at them? Do we see them through bars or glass, or behind a moat? What kind of environment do we see them in? Is it a cage, or concrete meant to look like nature, or even a slice of a natural reserve itself? How does what we see inform our thinking about questions of value or dominance?
What do the animals themselves see when they look out at us?
We wanted to attack this issue directly by exploring the central confrontation of humans looking at animals and vice versa. We designed a space in which on one side of a wall, the eyes of a 3D representation of an animal would follow a guest around the room. On the other side of the same wall, a viewing station, synced to the animal figure via an accelerometer and webcam, would allow anyone looking through it to see the world through the eyes of that animal.
Our next prototype was dubbed the Eye Wall: a massive grid of animal eyes, projected on a wall, which would blink in patterns as guests approached and activated motion sensors. We developed this idea further, so that the interaction became more noticeable. Using an IR camera mounted on the ceiling, we mapped a grid on the floor to a grid on the projection wall, and then tracked the movements of a guest holding a small light. The projection also changed based on the number of guests in the space at one time. At the same time, we set up a database that tracked Twitter messages marked with #whylookatanimals, as well as messages from our own website and integrated those messages into the exhibit.
Our final installation included elements of many of the above prototypes. We created an exhibit, seen in the video below, which uses motion sensors, projection, an IR camera, Twitter, and light. Through all of these means, the installation itself looks at the guest, and it is our hope that the guest looks back with heightened awareness.
