The Substitute

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Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg's paired video-and-sound installation digitally resurrects the male northern white rhino Sudan, who died in 2018 as the species' last male, using AI-driven animation developed from research by DeepMind and effects work by The Mill. Beginning as a pixelated form, the rhino grows steadily more lifelike over the work's six-minute run, set to a soundscape built from archival recordings of the species' final herd, posing the question of whether de-extinction is justified for a species humans failed to protect.