Ollie Dook's CGI Animals Critique Human Exceptionalism and Technological Enclosure

British artist Ollie Dook creates CGI videos and installations featuring melancholic animals to question human uniqueness. His work includes Animal Stories (2018), where a polar bear scrolls a phone dejectedly and a monkey takes selfies, and Reflections on a Visit V2 (2017), with a monkey offering ironic commentary at London Zoo. In Of Landscape Immersion (2018), viewers stand among fake rocks to watch a video where a chimp appears trapped, suggesting human confinement. Proboscidea Rappings (2019) features a digital Jumbo the elephant describing depression while drinking wine. Dook's pieces use barriers like cage bars and smudged glass to explore limits of perception. His collage video Smashing Windows (2016) shows gorillas crashing into enclosures, reflecting an anxious atmosphere with no escape. The artist draws on historical animal mascots like Felix the Cat (1928) and Mickey Mouse, referenced by Walter Benjamin as revealing technology's contradictions. Academic E.J. White's A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet (2020) and Esther Leslie's Hollywood Flatlands (2002) provide context for animal symbols in technomodernity. Dook's work suggests humans are delusional in insisting on exceptionalism, leading to isolation in self-made enclosures. His current projects examine memory loss and recorded recall. Chris Fite-Wassilak, author of The Artist in Time (2020), authored the source article.