COP - study task 2

 Meme culture in art and design

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-memes-owe-art-history

(Bucknell, 2017)

Bucknell, A., 2017. What Memes Owe To Art History. [online] Artsy. Available at: <https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-memes-owe-art-history> [Accessed 12 October 2020].

Notes: 

• Memes are a powerful part within digital media; easy to make and easy to share, they use witty design and are a little nonsensical
• Memes are used to jab at political and societal issues, with blunders, scandals and protests
• 'In the post internet world, nothing escapes the memes' comic gaze'
• The meme form has been recognised as an artistic medium, as well as being considered a new movement in the arts and culture
• Even though meme culture is vastly a result of digital media, the 'aesthetic and social sway' of contemporary meme culture has roots going back to pre digital art history 
• 'Memes are essentially 100 years of text art boiled down into your feed' - Darren Wershler, who claims that memes are 'everyday conceptualism' 
• Meme design has a balance of ironic and playful treatment of serious sociopolitical subjects; they break down both high and low culture through disrupting authenticity and originality within society and art culture. 
• Andy Warhol and Man Ray are figures in this pre digital meme culture, with work criticising the American Dream and Capitalism consumerism in a fun and witty way
• Despite feeling massively contemporary and modern in the digital age, meme design is heavily influenced by the 20th century arts' most 'revolutionary ideas'
• Todays meme culture adopts the techniques of postmodernist movements like Pop, performance and conceptual art
• Memes are all about subverting the status quo
• Like performance art of the 60s, memes are created to have an intentionally 'hackable' interface where people can hijack the format and create their own versions; memes are meant to be interactive and can be applied to different contexts
• The gap between audience and artist is made level
• Merging memes and graphic design is a massive part of the publication Action to Surface by The Rodina (an Amsterdam based collective) with the publication using a very performative mentality to design
• Within Action to surface, the duo 'lays out the political urgency of surface-led visual culture' akin to how 60's performance culture resisted norm culture
• With humour, memes develop a relatable response to everyday life, in which design becomes an interactive 'two way mirror'
• 'The Voice of The Netherlands'; The Rodina created an 'anti campaign' against the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) by creating spoof posters using a meme format that appropriated the PVV's campaign. This contributed to the defeat of the PVV in the Dutch general election
• Memes aren't just jokes, but have the potential to be more sinister than 'what meets the eye'
• 'Memes aren't an innocent process- they carry serious political weight
• Post curated the iconic exhibition 'What Do You Meme?'; all work created by female artists, the exhibition explores the subversive and subcultural power of memes in 'undercutting the role of the artist' 

Is satire possible in art and design today?

https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/whats-the-state-of-satire-in-graphic-design/

(Miller, 2019)

Miller, M., 2019. Is Satire Possible In Art And Design Today?. [online] Eye on Design. Available at: <https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/whats-the-state-of-satire-in-graphic-design/> [Accessed 12 October 2020].

• The 'pickle bar' is an exhibition space dedicated to various pickled themed works, which are part of the teams' 'pickle politics' research. It uses the idea of pickling and fermentation as a frame for examining history, politics and geopolitical relations. For instance, the graphics in the political exhibition are a plan on the recent phenomenon of 'pickle juice being repackaged and sold as a sports drink'; a 'western appropriation' of a drink long used as a 'hangover cure in Eastern Europe'
• The Pickle Politics bar has also has applied the concept of fermentation to 'the nationalist rhetoric in Poland' as a challenge to ideas that rose from the period of enlightenment
• 'Its a stupid medium, pickles, and its a way of using humour' - Slavs and Tatars' Payam Sharifi, 'through this very simple idea of fermentation and pickling, you can unravel much more complex things'
• Slavs and Tatars use satire and humour in publication and exhibitions to explore 'an area east of the former Berlin wall and west of The Great Wall of China'
• 'The subject of satire was really a question for us. We were asking,'what is the relevance of satire today?'
• Satire has been used in design as a way of speaking truth to power and 'pricking peoples consciousness'
• Satires power lies in its ambiguity 
• 'Every joke is a tiny revolution' - George Orwell 
• Crack up Crack down by Slavs and Tatars also explores the connection between graphics and satire, through considering the importance of accessibility 
• Started in 1955, the Biennial was significant in 'bringing together artists and designers from the East and West of the world during the Cold war' which was primarily through an emphasis on printed materials that could be printed cheaply and easily
• Satire also has a strong association of politics and cartoons; Nejc Prah designed the publications identity, and took inspiration from early 20th century Slovenian satirical newspapers. He picked up on common visual themes in these newspapers, and generated a visual language the embraces the jab of a joke with a hedgehog like character
• 'Today when anyone can make a meme on their phone, we wanted to test the waters and ask, 'what are the limits of satire?'
• There is now an ease for satire today due to the rise of digital media 'we noticed an interesting phenomenon... we're not witnessing this kind of proliferation of satire online in the same way we saw in the early 20th century with political satire journals'
• Shy Radicals: Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert

Analysis : making connections for my essay

Satire and witty thinking has been ever-present within the art and design world, with key figures Andy Warhol and Man Ray criticising American Consumerism with bright, playful visuals and ironic undertones; now more than ever, the digital world of design has led to a revolution of satire within meme culture. Akin to the 'hackable interface' of 1960's pop art (Bucknall, 2017), memes are used to jab at sociopolitical issues in a format where the audience can create their own content and 'apply to different contexts'.  Researcher Darren Wershler at Concordia University picks up on the history of meme culture and its' origins in satire, noting how memes are essentially 'everday conceptualism'; Wershler explores this in highlighting how the memes we consume are 'essentially 100 years of text art boiled down into your feed' (Bucknall, 2017). 

It is not outside of the norm for contemporary graphic designers to take inspiration from historical works, with studios like Slavs and Tatars expanding on the connection between graphics and satire in Crack Up Crack Down; designer Nejc Prah worked on the publication and used visuals inspired by political cartoons found in early 20th century Slovenian satirical newspapers. Prah picked up on common visual themes in these newspapers, through generating a visual language that 'embraces the jab of a joke' with a hedgehog like character (Miller, 2019). 

Through subverting the status quo, Amsterdam based studio The Rodina merged memes and graphic design within Action to Surface; a publication that 'lays out the political urgency' of surface-led visual culture, similarly to how 1960s' postmodernism resisted 'norm culture' (Bucknall, 2017). Ingraining meme culture into printed publications sparks the question into how we consume satire design in the post digital world; is there a danger in how easily we consume content, especially with the political undertones within meme culture today? Slavs and Tatars pick up on this issue within Crack Up Crack Down; 'today when anyone can make a meme on their phone, we wanted to test the waters and ask, 'what are the limits of satire?'.