Research Project, Interactive Artist Book

Memes for the Soul: The Internet and its Phantasmic Global Citizen, 2024

Supported by the RISD Research SPUR Fund

Written as my Master’s thesis at RISD, Memes for the Soul studies the internet meme as a symptom of the various new conceptual logics that have emerged in the age of information and networks – specifically those that govern our understanding of the “world”, “self”, and “knowledge”. Dismantling its existing ontological status, it reframes the internet meme through its communicative and performative social functions. It shows how the internet meme – through its capacity for experiential resonance, self-referential humor and absurdity – performs a curious dual function: it at once exposes the scale of the world, as well as soothes the anxiety that comes with that scale, rendering it an immensely addictive form of expression for our time.

The book is produced in two editions, the "Regular" edition which is designed to be a mass-market publication, and the "Funhouse" edition which is a multimedia artist book containing interactive pages, pop-ups and more. Written in a hybrid register that blends academese and vernacular speak, the book interweaves traditional scholarship with humor, personal anecdotes, pop culture references and visual material, allowing the reader a multimodal consumption of its themes.