With Spotter (2018 - 2022), Driessens & Verstappen created an artificial spotter that can identify and photograph animals. Inspired by his observations, Spotter tries to draw the animals himself. The self-learning capabilities of this robot are made possible by techniques such as Machine Vision, Object Detection, Machine Learning and GAN (Generative Adversarial Network).

After a first try-out in 2018, Spotter was developed further for the Machine Wilderness artist-in-residence at ARTIS Zoo Amsterdam, in early spring 2022. The animal species observed with the robot camera are meerkat, ibex, tern & ibis, trumpeter swan, mandrill, giraffe, zebra, weaverbird. The respective learning processes were captured frame by frame, resulting in animations of about 90 minutes.

organisation Zone2Source/FoAM/ARTIS