Four years before robotic dogs with celebrity faces roamed Art Basel Miami Beach dispensing AI-generated prints from their hindquarters, a different kind of machine was transforming visitors into algorithmic portraits at the same fair. The installation was called “0xC0FACE,” and its creator was Mario Klingemann, a Munich-based artist who had been training machines to see and reimagine human faces since before most people knew what a neural network was.

As Beeple’s “Regular Animals” dominated headlines at Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, some observers noted the conceptual throughline: cameras capturing visitors, AI systems reinterpreting their images, outputs emerging in unexpected ways. Klingemann himself weighed in, offering a candid reflection on what it feels like to see familiar ideas resurface with far greater fanfare, recalling his “A.I.C.C.A.” (Artificially Intelligent Critical Canine) project, which produced and defecated short texts about the works it encountered.

But to understand why Klingemann’s early projects matter, you have to understand the artist who created it and the moment in which it appeared.

The @Tezos NFT Exhibition at Art Basel Miami Beach continues through Saturday at the Miami Beach Convention Center.

Explore what NFTs mean to the art world and mint your own NFT with @quasimondo AI Art installation.#Tezos #CleanNFT #ArtBasel pic.twitter.com/IqSGVaGSOR
— Tezos (@tezos) December 3, 2021

The Pioneer

Mario Klingemann has been writing code since the early 1980s. A self-taught programmer whose father was an engineer and mother a painter, he found his way into art through technology rather than through traditional fine art training. By the time NFTs exploded into public consciousness in 2021, Klingemann had already spent years exploring what happens when you teach machines to perceive and generate human faces.

His approach has always centered on collaboration between human intention and algorithmic process. “The machine doesn’t have the urge to create,” he has said. The artist provides direction; the machine provides surprise. The artwork emerges in the tension between control and chaos.

This philosophy found expression in works like “Memories of Passersby I,” which generates unique, never-before-seen portraits in real time using neural networks. The piece sold at Sotheby’s in 2019, the first AI artwork to sell at Sotheby’s. Klingemann had established himself as a pioneer in a field that was about to explode.

“Memories of Passersby I.” Credit: Objkt Screenshot

Art Basel Miami 2021

When the Tezos Foundation approached Klingemann about creating an installation for their booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2021, the timing was significant. NFTs had gone mainstream. Beeple had sold “Everydays” for $69 million at Christie’s earlier that year. But most NFT experiences remained transactional: you bought a JPEG, you looked at it on a screen.

Klingemann proposed something different. What if visitors could become co-creators of AI art and walk away with their own NFT, minted on the spot?

The result was “0xC0FACE,” a collaboration between Klingemann, creative agency Huge, and production company AV&C. It became the first machine learning and NFT installation at Art Basel.

🗣 At Art Basel Miami Beach, you’re invited to co-create an eco-friendly #NFT with AI art pioneer @quasimondo, on the energy-efficient @tezos blockchain.

The #Tezos exhibition will also host panels with #NFT artists & community members. Visit https://t.co/Ll5OER3WuM for more. pic.twitter.com/qVCqPIW8wx
— Art Basel (@ArtBasel) November 26, 2021

The experience worked like this: visitors entered a large immersive space and scanned a QR code displayed on screen. Cameras captured them as they moved through the installation. Six uniquely trained machine learning algorithms transformed their movements and features into dreamlike, often grotesque, always unpredictable portraits.

The machine didn’t apply filters. It re-interpreted the human through Klingemann’s trained models. Each output was a collaboration between the visitor’s physical presence, the algorithm’s learned aesthetics, and the unpredictable emergence that happens when neural networks encounter new inputs.

When visitors found a portrait they wanted to keep, they were guided through creating a Kukai wallet and minting their artwork directly on the Tezos blockchain. The process was free. The artwork was theirs. For many visitors, it was their first NFT.

Over 10,000 people engaged with the installation during Art Basel Miami Beach 2021. Thousands of unique NFTs were created. The collection’s name, “0xC0FACE,” played on hexadecimal notation and the installation’s focus on facial transformation.

“0xFACE01.7434EAFC13A4” by Mario Klingemann. Credit: Objkt

The Blueprint

Looking back, “0xC0FACE” established several precedents that would become common in subsequent years:

On-site generative minting. Rather than purchasing pre-made artworks, visitors participated in the creation of unique pieces that existed only because they showed up.

Viewer as co-author. The traditional distinction between artist and audience blurred. Klingemann provided the trained models and the conceptual framework; visitors provided the raw material of their presence.

Blockchain as exhibition infrastructure. The Tezos blockchain wasn’t just a payment mechanism. It was the medium through which the artwork was instantiated and preserved.

Free participation with real ownership. Low transaction fees on Tezos meant visitors could mint without spending significant money, democratizing access to generative AI art.

Today at @prooofofpeople you'll have another opportunity to mint you free NFT at #DY5P1ACE pic.twitter.com/KM6qnLzE0Z
— Mario Klingemann💧💦 (@quasimondo) July 7, 2022

Another example of this was made possible in 2022 at Proof of People in London, where visitors used a joystick mechanism to capture their live mints, resulting in the DY5P1ACE collection.

These elements have since appeared in various combinations across the digital art landscape. But in December 2021, they were novel enough to draw attention from collectors and technologists alike.

“It’s weirding people out… which I love to do” – @beeple

We caught up with Beeple to talk about his “Regular Animals” currently on view at @ArtBasel as part of Zero 10, the fair’s new platform for art of the digital age

Follow along for more digital art conversations from… pic.twitter.com/5iMzKE5UQI
— Now Media (@nowmedia) December 6, 2025

Four Years Later

In December 2025, Beeple unveiled “Regular Animals” in the new Zero 10 digital art section at Art Basel Miami Beach. The installation featured robotic dogs from Unitree fitted with hyperrealistic heads created by Hyperflesh, depicting tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, alongside artists like Picasso and Warhol, and Beeple himself.

The dogs roamed a pen, capturing images of visitors with onboard cameras. AI systems reinterpreted what they saw through stylistic lenses appropriate to each character. Prints emerged from printers mounted at the dogs’ rears. The Musk dog rendered images as stark patent drawings; the Zuckerberg dog bathed everything in metaverse blue; the Picasso dog produced angular, boldly colored portraits.

The installation sold out during the VIP preview. Each robot cost $100,000 in editions of two plus one artist’s proof.

The concept drew considerable attention: robot + camera + AI + printer + the cheeky detail of output emerging from the animal’s backside. The work served as a commentary on tech power and the attention economy, with Beeple framing it as a meditation on how figures like Musk and Zuckerberg shape our visual culture through algorithmic control.

Good Morning Digital Art History Lovers 🖤

1961: "Electronic computers some day may pass judgments whose absolute correctness no one — neither artists nor spectators — will dare to question."

Below: 1961's Prediction Realized:
▫️ 'A.I.C.C.A.' (2023) by @quasimondo
▫️ Boston… https://t.co/t8LTz7hysR pic.twitter.com/udFYURZso9
— NB (@Noahbolanowski) November 16, 2024

The Robot Dog Lineage

When observers on social media noted the similarities between Regular Animals and Klingemann’s earlier work, particularly his robotic dog project “A.I.C.C.A.,” the conversation highlighted how certain concepts have become part of the contemporary art vocabulary.

“A.I.C.C.A.,” which Klingemann developed as a companion piece to his AI artist project Botto, is a robotic dog that functions as an autonomous art critic. It analyzes gallery spaces with computer vision and produces written critiques on thermal paper receipts that emerge from its rear. The dog’s physicality was deliberate: Klingemann designed it to comment on the abundance of pretentious art discourse by having the machine literally defecate its criticism.

How do I feel? Sour grapes of course.

I am slightly disappointed in what I see as lack of critical analysis and scrutiny by those who should know better. As someone who again and again has been constantly reminded how whatever I made reminds them of artist XY's work, I kind of…
— Mario Klingemann💧💦 (@quasimondo) December 19, 2025

Klingemann responded to the comparisons with characteristic candor. “How do I feel? Sour grapes of course,” he wrote on X, though he was careful to note he wasn’t suggesting plagiarism. “Obviously I do not think that Mike is copying or plagiarizing here, since there are only so many different things we expect a robot dog to do and pooping is on the top of that list.”

His comments reflected a broader observation about how ideas circulate in the art world. “When I see the combination of robot dog + cameras + AI + printer up its butt + pooping stance I can’t help to find that concept somewhat familiar,” he noted.

Traffic at the @tezos booth at Art Basel Miami is insane. Great installation by @quasimondo that I estimate is onboarding 300 new wallets per hour. Well curated work from @mattdesl, @liasomething, and @JoanieLemercier among others too. pic.twitter.com/VRxxz01kmZ
— Phil Smith (@onlygenerated) December 4, 2021

The Attention Economy

The resonance between “0xC0FACE,” “A.I.C.C.A.”, and “Regular Animals” suggests that certain concepts have reached a point of cultural maturity. Robot dogs, AI systems, and unexpected outputs now form part of the contemporary art vocabulary: ideas that have moved from experimental fringe to mainstream conversation.

This is not unique to AI art. Throughout art history, pioneering concepts have evolved as they pass through different hands, gaining new contexts and reaching wider audiences. Artists who spent years training neural networks and developing aesthetic frameworks have watched their ideas become part of a shared language.

Beeple’s fame comes from his discipline and consistency. He created and posted a new digital artwork every day for over thirteen years before “Everydays” sold for $69 million. Early concepts for his robot dogs date back to 2021 as well. His cultural visibility means his projects receive substantial coverage, coverage that helps bring AI art concepts to broader audiences, even as earlier experimenters may receive less attention.

The speed and scale of contemporary media amplify this dynamic. A viral moment at Art Basel can introduce ideas to millions that originated in quieter gallery spaces years before.

What Remains

The “0xC0FACE” collection still exists on the Tezos blockchain, a distributed record of over 10,000 collaborations between Klingemann’s algorithms and Art Basel visitors. Each token represents a moment: someone standing in front of a camera, moving their body, watching a machine dream their face into something new.

Klingemann returned to Art Basel Miami last year with his interactive “Appropriate Response” installation, pushing the boundaries of human-AI collaboration. The questions his installations raise about authorship, participation, and the role of machines in creative processes remain as relevant as ever.

Whether or not there was direct influence, the resonance between these works reveals how ideas mature within a community. Robot dogs dispensing AI-generated art have evolved from experimental critique to mainstream spectacle, a progression that reflects both the vitality of the concepts and the expanding audience for AI art.

Four years after “0xC0FACE” transformed Art Basel visitors into algorithmic portraits, the history of participatory AI art continues to unfold. The question isn’t just who gets remembered, but how we trace the evolution of ideas as they move from pioneers to broader recognition, and what gets preserved along the way.