In 2012, Scottish artist Rachel Maclean made a 13-minute video inspired by a popular meme of the time. The project, titled LOLCATS, explores the evolution of cat worship by imagining a world in which a young cat obsessed with Britney Spears gets chased by cat cyborgs, flees to a sort of vaporwave cat heaven, and is eventually gutted by a maniacal cat surgeon. That isn’t exactly reminiscent of “I can has cheezburger,” but Maclean’s work is always a sidestep or two away from the routes suggested by her many references. “I quite like the idea of connecting with people on a familiar level, and then slightly warping or flipping that into the unfamiliar,” she says.

Maclean most frequently works in video because it lets her imagine moveable,…

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