Electronic Petting Zoo

Press Release

Is it alive or just pretending to be? The first Electronic Petting Zoo at ZKM | Karlsruhe

They are soft, they purr, and they respond to touch and speech: the ten robot guinea pigs in the first Electronic Petting Zoo, which opens on Sunday, November 30, 2025, at 11 am at ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. Children and adults can test their interaction with lifelike machines here. In light of the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, this addresses an increasingly important question: Is that alive or just pretending to be? The free installation in the ZKM foyer is meant to help visitors learn to make this distinction.

Humans & Machines

Interactive technology has long been an integral part of our everyday lives. Whether it's a voice assistant in a smart home, a talking doll, or smart sensors, we are surrounded by objects that appear to be alive. Large language models such as ChatGPT, which pretend to be human counterparts, are only the latest manifestation of anthropomorphic machines. Against the background of the ever-increasing presence of AI in the twenty-first century, the ability to discern between what is alive and what is only pretending to be is essential: “The more machines replace social contact, the more problematic they become for us humans,” says Tina Lorenz, head of the ZKM | Hertzlab, which initiated the Electronic Petting Zoo. The project aims to raise awareness for this important distinction in children and adults. “In our view, the robotic guinea pigs are an excellent way to introduce children to an informed way of interacting with objects that appear life-like. They can illustrate the complex functioning of AI to a very young audience without necessarily being AI-based themselves,” explains Lorenz.

Publicly accessible petting zoo

The ZKM | Karlsruhe sees itself as a useful museum, a “Useum.” In this sense, the Electronic Petting Zoo has also set itself the goal of being useful and to foster one of the most important skills of the twenty-first century: the ability to reliably distinguish between “natural” and “artificial.” But other questions about the future also find space here: Can “soft” robots replace conventional petting zoos and pets? Are they capable of bringing more joy to the lives of lonely humans? And is a robot petting zoo a step in the right direction or rather in the wrong direction? We want to engage our audience in a conversation about these and other questions. The Electronic Petting Zoo is open to the public and free of charge during ZKM opening hours. Children accompanied by an adult can spend about half an hour with the robotic guinea pigs. Adults without children are also welcome.

Opening hours

November 30, 2025 – August 2, 2026

Wednesday–Friday: 2–6 pm

Saturday–Sunday: 11 am–6 pm

Research collaboration with KIT

The Electronic Petting Zoo is a project of ZKM | Hertzlab, which conducts artistic research and development at the intersection of art, politics, and technology. Parallel to its public use, the Electronic Petting Zoo is also being accompanied by a research project conducted by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT): Together with Kathrin Gerling, Professor of Human-Machine Interaction and Accessibility at the Institute for Anthropomatics and Robotics (IAR) in the Department of Informatics, we want to investigate whether and how kindergarten-age children can recognize and learn the difference between living animals and artificially animated objects.

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