Digital artist Pebble put his face on a $100,000 robot dog next to Elon Musk and Picasso — sold first

Mike Winkleman, the digital artist known as Beeple, has put himself at the center of the pack — literally — with his latest ubiquitous installation at Art Basel Miami Beach, and there’s still time to see it until Sunday.

His “Regular Animals” project features $100,000 robotic dogs fitted with hyper-realistic heads that resemble Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, along with art legends Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol. The robotic dogs roam in a glass pen, taking photos through chest-mounted cameras that are processed by artificial intelligence and printed on the back. According to the Wall Street Journal. Among the prints produced, 256 prints include QR codes that offer collectors a free NFT, distributed in bags labeled “stool sample.”

Beeple also included himself in this exclusive group, a move that the Charleston-based artist himself called “ballsy.” He told the newspaper that his dog, which bore his self-portrait, sold first, which surprised even Pebble.

The project marks at least the second time Winckelmann has become a major figure in the art world. Four years ago, his digital collection was sold at Christie’s for 69 million dollarshelping to fuel the NFT boom that would peak a year later before largely collapsing.