The Robot Zoo

The Robot Zoo. A travelling exhibit by SGI™; for schedule, see [1]. Also a web site: [2], and a book "By John Kelly, Phillip Whitfield, & Obin. Published by Turner Publishing, Inc. ISBN 1-57036-064-2" ([www.sci.mus.mn.us/sln/tf/books/robotzoo.html]).

The book is described as "A mechanical guide to the way animals work." One page on the website tells us that "Robot Zoo studies the form and function of real animals through their biomechanical counterparts—robots. In Robot Zoo the 'animals' are mechanical robots displayed in the context of their habitats. On display you'll see a bat, chameleon, giraffe, grasshopper, house fly, platypus, rhino and squid!" ([http:]). The fly was featured on the cover of the program for the 22nd International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 21-23 March 2001); the cover is credited to Bill Buckler with a permission notice for the fly to The Robot Zoo / Marshall Editions, with "special thanks to: BBH Exhibits, Inc. | The Museum of Discovery and Science." The fly is of special interest for what Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich have called "The Ovion/Cylon Alliance": the tendency to merge insects (necessarily organic) with the mechanical; contrarily—and hence all the more usefully—The Robot Zoo covers a range of animal genera, stressing mammals and so fluid an invertebrate as the squid.