Meme Lab

While most meme artists create work that feeds off the daily news cycle and viral online trends, Jenson Leonard instead focuses on creating what he calls “evergreen” images—content that remains consistently relevant over a long period of time. Embracing the appearance of an almost absurdly high production value, @CoryInTheAbyss memes mine the visual language of mainstream news media, advertising, and mass entertainment. These carefully constructed images pit capitalist American visual culture against itself through pastiche and satire, subverting pop culture imagery that ranges from blockbuster Hollywood film posters to ’90s hip-hop T-shirt aesthetics.
For our 4/20 special, Leonard will be visiting the lab to discuss his work with manuel arturo abreu and answering audience questions.

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Patia Borja is one of the most significant and accomplished figures in the history of online memes working today. Together with Laina Berry (@mistervacation) and River Moon (@saint.deepthroat), she runs Patia's Fantasy World, a meme page which is known for posting "tongue-in-cheek memes, razor-sharp observations about Black culture and identity, [with] an activist agenda that counters the scores of superficial platitudes on social media." (The Cut) She is also one of the forces behind the page's "comprehensive database of anti-racism resources," spanning "a range of topics including bail funds to donate to, resources for the Black trans community, literature on radical politics and prompts for addressing racism in the workplace." (Hypebae) She will be in conversation with Sacha Medjo, the mastermind behind Bard College Memes. The two will visit the lab to discuss their work and engage in a Q&A with attendants.
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Presented by the Bard Meme Lab, the Hannah Arendt Center, the Office of Gender Equity, and the Written Arts Program
Since December 2018, the poet and critic Erin Taylor has been creating memes for her Instagram meme page, @atmfiend. These memes display an emotional depth and textual playfulness which both innovates the form of memes and brings them into conversation with writers like Kathy Acker. She will be speaking about her works intersection with sex workers’ rights movement, complex trauma, and the power of memes as a digital art form. This will be followed by a discussion with critic and theorist Cecily Chen, a UChicago PhD student who focuses on queer and feminist theory, and a Q&A.
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A talk by Doctoral Researcher, Jovana Maksic

Jovana Maksic is a doctoral researcher at the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience, working on spatial orientation and navigation mechanisms in primates. In her talk on Memes and Neuroethology, she will first address misconceptions about the internet and its effect on the brain, attempting to differentiate the social and biological approaches to studying memes. Then, she will introduce recent advances in studies of animal behavior and neuroethology, presenting a novel and perhaps alien speculative perspective to memes and cognition.

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A talk + Q&A with the acclaimed meme creator / noise musician (Wolf Eyes)

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.

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Featuring a Q+A with director Arthur Jones and producer Giorgio Angelini

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