Selling the Cloud Sublime - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 86

image substitutes. These include using technology to extend life or end
it, to begin life or to terminate life before it emerges. They also address
robotics, automation, and the opportunities and threats posed by think-
ing and feeling machines. The “Mom's Family” spot is just an ad, but it
also provides cloud computing, and Microsoft, with the opportunity to
take sides in a growing debate. Clearly they choose the technological over
the natural sublime and, in doing so, advance an increasingly powerful
myth or story line in global culture: the superiority of technology over
humanity as an instrument of transcendence.
Microsoft chose to pursue both business and the home consumer in
its cloud-computing marketing campaign. Two other IT giants chose a
different strategy, with IBM focusing on business customers and Apple
concentrating on the individual consumer market. They are both signii-
cant for understanding the discursive construction of the cloud. From
its irst commercials in 2009, IBM has had the longest run among major
corporations of advertising cloud computing. Despite a simple message
and a reliance on talking heads, IBM's ads are among the most lavishly
produced. The 2012 ad “All in the Clouds” used thirty-two animators,
designers, illustrators, and modelers to bring to life an imaginary world
that exists only in the cloud (IBM 2012a). According to the company,
“Everything in the spot was painted by hand and then mapped onto 3D
wireframes to create the completely bespoke look. Each character has a
backstory, which sparked the animators' imaginations. Every 'location'
was extensively researched to make sure the transformed world looked like
the real one” (Marshall 2012). The commercial begins with a voiceover
welcoming viewers “to business as usual,” thanks to “the IBM smart
cloud.” As we see, however, business as usual is anything but. The irst
animation swoops down on a small laboratory in Berlin that uses cloud
computing to ight cancer. The second lands in China, where the cloud
is making it possible for an industrial city to become a high-tech hub in
less than four years. Then it's back to the West, where Britain is building
a smart grid to help cut emissions by up to 80 percent. Finally, we return
to Asia, where “even an independent studio in Malaysia can produce big-
time blockbusters.” Then we see the one nonanimated human in the com-
mercial, a woman who, behind studious-looking eyeglasses, announces,
“Transforming business through the cloud. That's what I'm working on.
I'm an IBMer. Let's build a smarter planet.”