Cloud Copy
(2021)
You’re part of something greater now
Pulsing in the algorithm
Let your thoughts fragment into a galaxy
Of subreddits and subtweets and subcultures
Welcome to sub-cultism
Pick a faction
Don’t worry you can change stream at any time
Simply navigate to a new tab
Go deep
Deeper
This void is cavernous, begging to be filled
STOP
Just there
You’re perfect
- - - - -
This work was originally developed for Conflict in My Outlook: Don’t Be Evil at UQ Art Museum, curated by Anna Briers.
PRESS
“Visitors first experienced Cloud Copy by Xanthe Dobbie, an artist known for intricate digital collages, on an Oculus VR headset. The work stitches together fragments of internet content, engulfing the viewer in a claustrophobic world of corporate logos and pornography before ending with an explosion and the words “GAME OVER.” In employing purposefully banal aesthetics that mimic everyday software, Dobbie portrays the internet and its cloud of data as an all-encompassing quotidian dystopia, where “we are free to be our worst selves,” and set the tone for the rest of the show.” - The Dystopia of Digital Banality in “Don’t Be Evil” BY KYLE WEISE
“In the VR experience of Xanthe Dobbie's Cloud Copy, where corporate logos representative of 'Big Tech' disruptors, such as Facebook and Google, float in the cosmos - as ubiquitous and all-knowing as God, answerable only to their own laws and gravitational will.” - DR JOSEPH BRENNAN
“UQ Art Museum's latest free exhibition ponders the labour, data, infrastructure and all-round pervasiveness of our always-online world” - CONCRETE PLAYGROUND