Why it’s interesting
The Substitute is Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg’s 2019 video installation. A life-size northern white rhino agent roams an empty virtual world and learns the limits of its space. Its image and sound shift between pixelated and lifelike states, using behaviors adapted from rare footage of the last herd. The work does not claim that extinction has been solved; it uses an increasingly convincing artificial animal to ask why humans invest in substitutes after failing to protect living ones.
How to try it
Read the Onassis Foundation description first, then view the stills and installation photographs on the artist’s official page. Watch for the transition from fragmented pixels to a more believable animal. The online pages document a five-metre video installation and do not offer control of the agent.
Requirements and sources
Online viewing is free and requires no account, although embedded video availability can vary. Onassis verifies the artist, date, learning-agent mechanism, and use of research footage. Sudan was the last male northern white rhino; two females remain, so the subspecies is functionally extinct rather than entirely gone. The 956×659 cover is an official artist-site still, credited to Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg Ltd and used by remote reference only.