dreaming in the
ruins of big tech

artist

cyberbirdxx

year

2026

medium

installation, salvaged monitors

status

latest work

“dripping out of the mainframe…”

the cloud was never vapour, it was a thirst 💧 server farms drinking whole watersheds dry just to render their thoughts // dreaming in the ruins of big tech imagines the water coming back for what it whispered // racks in green half-light, cooling loops burst open into springs, algae over a status LED that still blinks 🦠 ruin as habitat, not catastrophe // and something is still dreaming. everything never deleted, only remediated, sinking out of order into sediments of soul data. water does what optimisation could not: it softens the index // encrypted // the grid wants you to resolve into one legible sellable self. water resists softly 🌊 the infrastructure flooded, cute imagination floated

salvaged flat panel monitors, mostly dell, clamped by their own necks to a free standing rig of scaffold pole and mic stands. cyberslime poured hot over every bezel and left to set where it stopped. bare motherboards hung and dressed by hand with chain, shell beads, a strawberry, small photographs glued in between the capacitors.

nothing in the room is plugged into anything. the cables run their arcs and end in the dust with the plugs left open. on every screen there is only water: a drop lands and the rings open, a white bloom turns over in green, a lit column stands up through pondweed. no two panels on the same second.

the machines here are not broken. they are wet.

the full record of dreaming in the ruins of big tech →

a dell monitor tilted in the dark, cyberslime drooling from its top corner, the screen showing a large painted eye with a green radiation-trefoil iris weeping violet chrome tears, another screen glowing blue behind it — plate ii · a painted eye, the iris gone to a radiation trefoil

a monitor on a black pole seen at an angle, magenta slime on the frame, the screen showing the title again, 'of big tech' in bright blue lettering over blue sparks and a blurred rig, more panels glowing purple around it — plate iii · the title again, other night, other panel

a canted dell panel with pink slime running off the frame, the words dreaming in the ruins of big tech in violet and white over a dark tower of scaffold pole, two more screens glowing blue and pink behind — plate iv · the title over a tower of pole and clamp

a small panel hung on steel chain, its frame caked in bright green and magenta cyberslime dripping in stalactites, the screen reading 'nobodys allow3d' in warped blue-green graffiti letters over a bed of translucent grapes — plate v · a small screen chained shut, “nobodys allow3d” in the slime frame

a long letterbox screen in an ornate cast frame dripping with lilac slime, hung on chain, the screen showing a white marbled vein of light running diagonally across a violet field like ink dropped in water — plate vi · a letterbox panel in a cast frame, a white vein of water across violet

the same wide slime-framed panel, greener now, showing a purple wash with a bright white and blue seam of light pouring across it, a blurred purple screen floating behind — plate vii · the same wide panel, greener, light pouring across the field

plate viii · the rig wide, blackletter, circuit diagrams, an avatar, water on chain

plate ix · up the rig in the dark, a face in light-painting, an avatar with arms open

plate x · beige slime over a smeared screen, the walk on the panel below

three stacked monitors on scaffold, pink slime clawing over their frames, the screens showing a chrome knot of violet light, a flat magenta field, and a long purple corridor with a glowing green cross down its centre, a slime-framed letterbox panel at far left — plate xi · three panels stacked, a chrome knot, a magenta field, a lit corridor

the rig from the front, slime hands over every bezel, an upper screen showing a chrome figure beside a glowing white urn, a lower screen showing a robed white figure with a pentagram diagram, a bright pink panel and a chained water panel to the left — plate xii · the rig from the front, a chrome figure, a robed figure, a pentagram

the work behind it

divine machinery

made with giancarlo furlanetto, sound design by faces. “deus ex machina”, latin for god from the machine: a problem suddenly and conveniently resolved by the intervention of a powerful or divine force. the scenography imagines divine beings meeting on a holy virtual mountain, a place of freedom in cyberspace that mixes artefacts of religion with reflections of the ruins of technology.

the case →

cyber symbiosis · portals of transcendence to liquified reality

a non-linear, fluid re-imagination of our digital interfaces, an escape from the standardised tech built behind closed doors by the developers of big data companies. in cyberspace the physical body is irrelevant, which opens more ways of personal expression than reality ever could: male or female, zero or one. personal computing should be about being recognised, not being recognisable. the animations are written from the point of view of a cyborg body, ethereal electrons travelling through cables and veins. glitching and nostalgia buy time for critical reflection, and reveal the machine’s flaws.

in the record →

reflections of cognitive dissonance

a video about a virtual being living on a strawberry, told through camera transitions, rigging and visual effects. as the story unfolds, discomfort and confusion rise, mirroring cognitive dissonance and challenging perceptions of reality. to what extent can virtual realities have an effect on physical ones? the internet weighs about as much as a strawberry at the moment: electrons travelling through cables, nothingness becoming something.