February 14 - March 15, 2025
Curated by Samantha Blumenfeld
Victoria Reshetnikov, Tong Wang, Samantha Blumenfeld, Xianglong Li, Ash Hagerstrand
Curated by Samantha Blumenfeld
Victoria Reshetnikov, Tong Wang, Samantha Blumenfeld, Xianglong Li, Ash Hagerstrand
Due to our exponentially optimized state through cultural over-abundance, improved algorithms, and increasingly self-referential data, memes exist as part and parcel of culture, nationality, and linguistics. Despite Hito Steyerl’s “Defense of the Poor Image” as an understanding of culture and communication through image degradation as signs of digital wear and tear, creating iterative and meta-language systems, that no new images are being generated is cause for concern. The result is stagnation, over-consumption under late-stage capitalism, and waste (psychological, economic, and environmental) while creating ever-expanding conditions for what constitutes culture, eliminating friction and its subsequent development of counterculture.
“Hyper-meme” takes a look at these images as archetypes that pervade macro-cultural spaces online; tumblr aesthetics, webcore, post-gender avatars, and post-meme art that, while acknowledging our hyper-optimized and post-digital state of being, challenges hegemonic forms of online image-making and identity-building through form and process.
Citations:
Steyerl, Hito. “In Defense of the Poor Image.” (2015).
Wang, Tony, Helen Chen, Chloe Desaulles, Joyce Matos, Seth Thompson, and Michael Yeung.
“Hyper-Optimization; Creative Stagnation Amidst Cultural Abudance.” Office of Applied Strategy, no. 1 (2024): 1-5. Accessed February 3, 2025.https://officeofappliedstrategy.com/research#oas-dossier-1-hyper-optimization.
“Hyper-meme” takes a look at these images as archetypes that pervade macro-cultural spaces online; tumblr aesthetics, webcore, post-gender avatars, and post-meme art that, while acknowledging our hyper-optimized and post-digital state of being, challenges hegemonic forms of online image-making and identity-building through form and process.
Citations:
Steyerl, Hito. “In Defense of the Poor Image.” (2015).
Wang, Tony, Helen Chen, Chloe Desaulles, Joyce Matos, Seth Thompson, and Michael Yeung.
“Hyper-Optimization; Creative Stagnation Amidst Cultural Abudance.” Office of Applied Strategy, no. 1 (2024): 1-5. Accessed February 3, 2025.https://officeofappliedstrategy.com/research#oas-dossier-1-hyper-optimization.
OPEN CALLS
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UPCOMING
Dear Cheri (2024)
March 14th, Friday, 8:30pm
Screening 2/4 of Letters, film series program by Joseph Eusebio
‘the words make noise’
March 14th, Friday, 6-8pm