Meme Lab

The Bard Memetics Laboratory (Bard Meme Lab)
is an interdisciplinary research group focusing on digital memes, online media, and content dissemination.

The lab provides a space for examining online culture through the lenses of the experimental humanities, film studies, cognitive science, and the visual arts. Through examining the underlying superstructure of memetic content - not just the content of the meme but its very form — the Lab engages with the online cultural landscape and produces original research and programming.

About the Meme Lab

  • Our History
    The Bard Memetics Laboratory was founded in 2019 as an interdisciplinary research group focusing on digital memes, online media, and content dissemination examined through the lens of experimental humanities, film studies, and the visual arts.
  • Our Staff
    Ed Halter, Advisor and Executive Director 
    Mitch Anzuoni, Advisor and Head of Research
    Nik Slackman, ns0385@bard.edu
    Dani Wilder: dw8340@bard.edu
    María Bernedo: mb9633@bard.edu
    Alexi Piirimae: ap7045@bard.edu
    Emmanuel Dominguez: ed5657@bard.edu
    Spencer Vazquez: sv5565@bard.edu

Events

  • Feburary 9, 2021
    Inzane Johnny come to Bard
    A talk + Q&A with the acclaimed meme creator / noise musician (Wolf Eyes)
    Register Here

    For the past two decades, experimental musician John Olson has been at the forefront of the intersection between electronic innovation and aesthetics. As Inzane Johnny, he has taken his expertise on this medium and interpreted it through the burgeoning phenomenon of memes. He has seen his own specific brand of humor, one which is serious about art but ludic about life, disseminate into a digitally ubiquitous sensibility. February 9th, John will come to speak at Bard College about how his innovative approach to technological art has shaped our culture at large. This inaugural event is going to kick off our season of artists and presenters that make us reconsider the meme format as a discursive site.
  • November 23, 2020
    Screening of Feels Good Man
     
    Featuring a Q+A with director Arthur Jones and producer Giorgio Angelini

Our Publication

CONTENT: A Memetics Research Journal

As part of the Bard Meme Lab’s inquiries into digital culture, we are seeking inventive submissions to our new journal, CONTENT. We are looking for work that disassembles the form of the meme itself, examining not only specific instances but focusing on long term trends in how we consume and propagate ourselves online. What makes meme formats so durable (or not)? When does something become “cringe”? How have our habits of media intake changed? Research papers, interviews, essays, OC, and more unconventional forms are all accepted. 
Please email any submissions or questions to memelab@bard.edu

Projects

Projects

This Wojak Does Not Exist

ML-powered Wojak generator trained on a bespoke Meme Lab data set 

thiswojakdoesnotexist.com >