Endangered Animals Make Awesome Killer Robots

Animal rights activism tends to rely heavily on cute to drive its point home—a simpering, doe-eyed aesthetic that inspires guilt in the viewer by shoving furry little things in front of them and demanding how could you let this adorable little fuzzball die? They also occasionally invoke the inverse with gory, sexual imagery that has gotten PETA so much attention over the years. And while I like looking at cute animal GIFs and gratuitous body shots as much as the next person, I can't shake the uncomfortable rhetoric of victimization this kind of artwork so often establishes. Sure, until Caesar leads his army of hyperintelligent apes to take over the world from us filthy humans, animals are pretty helpless against our constant assaults. But constantly reminding us of that fact doesn't offer much of a positive impression of how interested parties can start helping to fight the good fight.

That's why I was drawn to Robert Chew's series of cyberpunk-esque robotic animals when it popped up online earlier this week. The LA-based freelance artist told me over the phone that he first got the idea to produce the series after toying around with an illustration of a mechanized vulture one day. Chew is a graduate from the Academy of Art University with dreams of one day working as an artist in the video game industry, so drawing giant killer robots in his spare time is a pretty natural hobby.

"I like thinking in stories, building a world, putting things in context," Chew said. "This didn't really have a story, it was just a giant mechanical bird!"

So he began researching other animals online. At first, he was just looking for YouTube videos to help give him a sense of the muscular structure and movement patterns of various creatures. But he soon found himself fixating on horrific videos depicting rhinoceroses who had become victims of the poaching industry.

"Seeing them with their horns chopped off, it was terrible," Chew said. "So I thought ok I can make these creatures to help protect the other animals."

Like me, Chew said he can also get frustrated with the "guilt trip" he feels many animal rights groups try to lay on him in their media efforts. Instead, he wanted to "feed into the cool side" of anti-poaching activism by giving the same sense of thrill people normally associate with the hunt itself. As he continued his research, he was drawn to the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, and their program that uses  drones to survey large swaths of wildlife and detect poachers before they can find their victims. He began to submit his work to them to help support their campaign to save the "Big 5" endangered species.

"The aggressive part comes from what they do," Chew said of the IAPF. "They do active prevention; they try to stop poachers before they kill animals. That fed into the design of the pictures…I wanted to show something that could actually defend itself."

Like a lot of cyberpunk artwork, Chew's drawings can't help but look a little kitschy when taken out of context. Still, he manages to pose a provocative idea about how something like technology can be used to help preserve a natural habitat and the creatures therein.

You can see more of Chew's work here.