Lecture | Some Sticky Terms for further Meme Studies: Genre, Archive, Echo, Fash
Engaging critically with the wonky inception of memes as „viral“ carriers of „cultural information“, the input will suggest alternative terms for the investigation of meme cultures. It argues that memes are not well analysed by the descriptive registers of visual art (e.g. as visual texts), but rather present a dominant mode of online cultural production that foregrounds im/possible modes of archive navigation, dis/orientation and meaning-jamming within the politico-affective realms of the digital. The talk will suggest – following the works of Sara Ahmed, Linda Williams, Lauren Berlant and others – the terms stickiness, genre, and echo in order to deploy a reading of memes as significant, or maybe quintessential, to contemporary „memetic“ publics. The probably not achievable aim of the talk is to decenter questions about „memes as artifacts/artworks“, and investigate memes in their performative, affective, and possibly infrastructural role in the digital transformation of the social. In doing so, the dominance of alt-right memes will be discussed.
Simon Strick is a scholar working in American, Media and Gender Studies, currently at the Brandenburg Centre for Media Studies (ZeM). His book Rechte Gefühle: Affekte und Strategien des digitalen Faschismus (2021) won the Hans Bausch Media Prize from the SWR. He writes and works for the Berlin-based performance collective Panzerkreuzer Rotkäppchen (PKRK).
The event is part of the worskshop „Memes — Affekte — Interventionen“.
Time & Location
Nov 11, 2022 | 04:30 PM
Universität der Künste Berlin
Medienhaus (R. 6 / Oral History-Hörsaal)
Grunewaldstr. 2-5
10823 Berlin