Recontextual Art of the 21st Century
This project aimed at creating a deconstructive visual volume that looked at internet memes as a globally popular aesthetic trend from the lens of art history. It seeks to establish the place of internet memes into the visual arts tradition of this century, arguing the case by looking at existing philosophies and theories of art, and how they have evolved over time. Upon this foundation, references from avant-garde artistic movements of the past were used to draw parallels between the onset and growth of those movements to that of the rise of the aesthetic of internet memes.
The content is presented in the form of a communication designed to reflect the aforementioned status of memes as a mature artistic movement as opposed to its present mundanity.
I identified several characteristic features of the meme culture that could be translated into visuals cues in the outcome.
First and foremost was the rise in the use of imageboards and fora created in the early 00s, from where the initial creation of Internet memes began. These imageboards have a sense of confusion as the information present might not be very coherent, and is almost jarring in the manner the content switches from one to the other. Furthermore, the comment thread of these websites are a unique aspect, where people post variations of the same image, or expand discussion on the topic, enhancing the content.
The second important aspect is that which makes memes what they are: their democratic nature. A meme qualifies as a meme only when viewers modify the original media. Therefore, by nature, a meme is a set of media with interchangeable content, something that the viewers themselves create, for themselves.
This interface, with its basic interaction involving changeable and juxtaposed content, and the crucial aspect of involving the viewer to change the content was used to structure and design the book in a manner that would allow the reader to do the same to the content of the book, essentially, meme-ify it. The book seeks to capture the essence of the jarring, interchangeable and loud visual language of internet memes, but also retain the grandeur and permanence of art history academia.
