I worked with technologist David Nunez to bring his animatronic installation “Requiem for Rhinos” to life at the Illuminus Festival.

David Nunez, in his role as a visiting researcher at the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab, designed a sculpture commemorating the death of Nabire, one of the last remaining white rhinos. The sculpture consisted of a ring of four flying animatronic rhinos connected to the ceiling with stepper-controlled winches, and a fifth representing Nabire on the ground in the center.

I was brought in to manage the project timeline, design and fabricate animatronic elements, install the structural supports for the flying rhinos, and coordinate the volunteers provided by Illuminus. The project involved a lot of sweat and all-nighters, but we deployed it to a fantastic audience reaction at the festival.

You can learn more about the project and its origins here.