The (political) power of memes has moved beyond virtual images. The distinction between the virtual and ‘real life’ no longer applies, or perhaps was never really there. Their effects (or should we say affects?) are moving through digital infrastructures, policy, regulations and bodies. If memes are used as a tool by the alt-right to mobilize people to storm the Capitol and play a substantial role in the Ukrainian war, can they also be used by the left to spark a revolution, as memetic warfare is more immediate and accessible than real-life demonstrations? What kind of labor would that require? What ...

Memes are bastards, and we love them for it. But memes are bastards in the sense that they are born from two seemingly incompatible ontological registers: an unholy matrimony of semiosis and virality, sense and nonsense, signification and circulation. More on that later. First, let’s acknowledge that the meme is also an infantile and laughable term, as are all words that repeat themselves. Yet—encountering its own stupidity, and making this into its generative principle—it is not ashamed; like any self-respecting idiot savant, it never ceases to persist in its own convoluted wisdoms. ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and ...

Is the idea of society as the totality of individuals the only way of envisioning human sociality, or is it only a historically determined construct? What other dimensions emerge when we shift from thinking in terms of individuals to dividuals and their assembling into condividuals? Which are the political implications of this shift in the contemporary capitalism that already operates on a condividual level? Starting from these questions, the Dutch media theorist Daniel de Zeeuw explored the visions exposed during a two-day event, inspired by Marco Deseriis’s book, Proper and Improper Names – Identity in the Information Society (Ljubljana, 17–18 ...