In 2020 I’ve started a video project that documents my consistent but hopeless attempts to restore my castrated rabbit’s libido. So far, the project included interviews with veterinarians and zoologists and the creation of a sculptural sex doll for the rabbit. My plans for the video are to document two more steps in this bizarre pursuit – creating a robot that will attempt to “communicate” with my rabbit, and the production of a customized VR headset for him, offering a seductive VR experience.
 Existing text about the work:
Throughout the video, it is nor clear what is true and what is fiction, and if the rabbit is indeed the subject of this experiment; an experiment which can be seen as equally deranged as castrating a rabbit in the first place. The puzzling imagery and amorphous narrative are submerged in a tragic moment of libidinal loss, and raise questions regarding the liability of art, the probity of cinema and human-animal relations. https://youtu.be/TaQUyW-Ppto
Fabrication and technological aspects:
It is clear to me that the robot should be made (partly or fully) out of silicone rubber – similarly to the “sex doll” – as silicone rubber often signifies skin and has a bodily organic quality to it, as well as a sexual connotation. It also allows for hair/fur punching, which is an important component of the aesthetics I would like to achieve https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqwtyqX-jl8
Initially, I was thinking about an Arduino-powered robot, half-hard, and half-soft, that incorporates a motion detection sensor, that then causes the robot to move in the direction of the motion it has detected and sets off an audio player and smell-inducing sensors. However, after I came across the example of the soft robot developed by Harvard’s Whitesides Research Group https://youtu.be/ZrrM-QZ-xDI through the course, my vision of the robot has started to shift. https://gmwgroup.harvard.edu/files/gmwgroup/files/1135.pdf I wonder if it’s possible to create a soft robot that has a similar locomotion method, except there is a way to change the direction of its movement in real-time while moving.
Related art project:
Danger, Squirrel Nutkin! (2009) by Ian Ingram http://www.art.cmu.edu/news/alumni-news/5-questions-for-ian-ingram-mfa-10/