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Visual Memes as Neutralizers of Political Dissent
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A meme, conceived as the cultural equivalent of the biological gene by Richard Dawkins, spread through culture like a virus – quickly and widely. Its viral power is in turn understood as product of nature, rather than culture – or rather as threatening to subvert culture into a condition of nature. Firing up over night, and disappearing just as quickly, memes are often allowed to run their course and fade into oblivion, only to return again. They emerge at moments of contestation of dominant narratives and through their participatory structure of imitation and mutation allow for the dissolution of points of ideological conflict and the reestablishment of a normative narrative. If not too threatening to the health of the state body, these cultural viruses are left unchecked as they build the immunity, and further, in Derrida’s terms, the “autoimmunity” of the nation-state. In this project, I explore the role of visual Internet memes as neutralizers of contested past and present narr...
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