Miri's XPUB2 thesis outline

Background

Key issues

• Memes and their political dimension
• Infiltration of public space as an art strategy
• The potential of memefying daily life

Internet memes have developed into a kind of new language, a new digital dialect, which can not only help us identify and understand new cultural trends, but that can also have a political effect. What superficially can be understood as nonsense or jokes can be a very accessible form of important political participation. Everyone who is a bit familiar with the internet and digital culture can in principle understand meme language and also potentially make memes.

If you look further into the theories of memetics such as Richard Dawkins theories in The Selfish Gene, you quickly find out that memes do not only refer to internet memes but in a broader way, to elements of behaviour passed on from one individual to another by imitation (such as jokes, songs, dances or even beliefs that have been passed on over generations). Dawkins refers to memes as the cultural parallel to biological genes in the sense of that they are similar in being in control of their own reproduction.

When reading into this, I could not unsee the parallels between memetic strategies and art strategies I've researched and used in the past. Tactical media, culture jamming, hacking strategies and media activism often work similar to memes. Such parallels are:

• Working bottom-up (meaning they proceed from the bottom of a hierarchy upwards)
• Replicating something with a twist (taking something out of a context, changing it a bit and putting it back into this context)
• Easy generation of attention and participation
• The aspect of humour
• The use of public space
• The use of an audience
• Being part of a community

These parallels certainly do not apply to all the projects of these art movements and are clearly my own perception, nevertheless, they apply strongly to my own artistic practice. This is why I want this master thesis to be closely linked to my artistic practice as well as my master project and that it answers questions that arise in my own creative process.

Connecting these two topics, 1. memes and their political dimension and 2. infiltration of public space as an art strategy, for my master project, I want to translate memetic behaviour to infiltrations of public spaces and make a guide to "memefy" life. So in my thesis, I want to write about these two topics as well and as the third key issue, a combination of these two: The potential of memefying life. In this last chapter, I will try to find out how exactly it could be possible to memefy your life and hopefully find answers that later on can guide me through my master project. Also, it can be seen as a sort of manifesto for imaginary interventions (that could possibly be realised). I want to talk about the potential of bringing memes to the street and the political dimension it could open up. The possibilities of memefying life in a non-digital way as pleasant disturbances, as a political voice or even as an act of non-violent protest. I want to find out, what advantages or disadvantages the digital or the non-digital sphere for the medium meme could have.

This third point (memefying daily life) is not merely a theoretical attempt of translating something digital into something non-digital but also of much importance for my artistic practice. I see this thesis as a platform to reflect on my own experiments and as research for my master project. Although, in the thesis, I will not directly write about the final project itself, my research will help me connecting the dots in order to see the whole picture which will be useful for me for finalising my project.

Format

An experimental analytical essay. I want to combine the classical format of a text written in an academic style with a comment section that uses internet slang.

Thesis: Introduction

~ 500 words

• Hook the reader with a funny joke lol
• Explanation of the research goal and background information

Research goal:
Analyse memes theoretically to receive a certain set of rules that could be applied to non-digital memes in a non-digital sphere

Thesis: Chapter 1 - Memes and their political dimension

~ 2000 words

Memes

• Introduce the term "meme", its origin and its meaning

The perfect meme

• What makes a meme successful?
• Introduce L. Shifman's explanation on viral vs. memetic success
• Trying to find a set of characteristics/a set of rules for memetic success

Thesis: Chapter 2 - Infiltration of public space as an art strategy

~ 2000 words

Art movements that use the strategy of infiltrating public spaces

• Research on Culture jamming, tactical media and hacking

Every public space is political

• To whom belongs space and how do you use it?
• How do you generate political participation and attention?
• How can you maybe even initiate social-transformatory processes through artistic interventions?
• How can you grasp and react to a place's political, cultural and national systems of values?

Thesis: Chapter 3 - Memefying daily life

~ 2000 words

• Speculating on how to incorporate memes in your daily life in a non-digital way
• Reasoning the urgency of translating memes to actions

Thesis: Conclusion

~ 500 words

something very intelligent

(yet to come)

Thesis: Glossary

(yet to come)

Reading list for thesis

Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press

Blackmore, S. and Dawkins, R. (1999). The Meme Machine. New York: Oxford University Press

Von Gehlen, D. (2020). Meme. Berlin: Verlag Klaus Wagenbach

Raley, R. (2009). Tactical media. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press

Arkenbout, C. and Scherz, L. (2022). Critical Meme Reader II: Memetic Tacticality. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures

McCulloch, G. (2019). Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language. New York: Riverhead Books

Bogost, I. (2022). The Age of Social Media Is Ending. [online] Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/twitter-facebook-social-media-decline/672074/ [Accessed 26 Nov. 2022]

Weibel, P. (2015). Global Activism, Art and Conflict in the 21st Century. Cambridge: MIT Press

Friesinger, G. and Grenzfurthner J. and Ballhausen, T. (2010). Urban Hacking: Cultural Jamming Strategies in the Risky Spaces of Modernity. Bielefeld: Transcript publishing

Schmidt, S.M. (2010). Hacking the City, Interventions in urban and communicative spaces. Folkwang: Edition Folkwang / Steidl

Christe, D.W.C. and Ritzen, H.H.P.M. (2021), The Manual of Modern Pataphysics. Rotterdam: Platform P

Stiegler C. and Breitenbach P. and Zorbach T. (2015). New Media Culture: Mediale Phänomene der Netzkultur. Bielefeld: transcript publishing

Nowotny J. and Reidy J. (2022). Memes, Formen und Folgen eines Internetphänomens. Bielefeld: transcript publishing

Marrs, L. and & Dingsun, T. (2022). How to Read the Internet. [online] Available at: https://otherinter.net/research/lore/how-to-read-the-internet/ [Accessed 26 Nov. 2022]

Hemmens, A. and Zacarias G. (2020). The Situationist International, A Critical Handbook. Pluto Press

Cramer, F. (2017). Meme Wars: Internet Culture and the ‘Alt Right’. FACTLiverpool [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNYuhLKzi8&ab_channel=FACTLiverpool [Accessed 17. Nov. 2022]

Jones, S.E. (2006). Against Technology - From the Luddites to Neo-Luddism. Great Britain: Routledge

Deseriis, M. (2011). Lots of Money Because I am Many: The Luther Blissett Project and the Multiple-Use Name Strategy. Books.google.com

Baas, J. (2011). Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life. New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, and Chicago: The University of Chicago Press

Erickson, J.D. (1984). Dada, Performance, Poetry and Art. USA: Twayne publishers