image text special shop

'Memeplex™', Group Project at Seventeen, London


“I will start by telling you a little about Memeplex™. We are a neutral hospital that specialises in neuro ops… which means we transplant a number of memes into a person’s mind over their lifespan, it typically averages at 3 times a life. These memes are from various socio-political human factions – it is at no cost to the patient but the faction must pay – some factions have their own funds, others fundraise and a few have patrons who pay for their meme-corpse plantation.” Memeplex from The Wet Altar, by Omsk Social Club, 2021

Memeplex™  is two stories in one. The first explores the implementation of ideas, belief and conviction that occurs through memetic artefacts. In this instance they are political living memes that attach themselves to the host in order to perform a survivalist function, reminiscent of the pathogenic fungi Cordyceps. The Cordyceps is a genus of parasitic fungi that grows in the larvae of insects. When these fungi infect their host, they replace its tissue and sprout long, slender stems that grow outside the host’s body. They are known to take over the mind of the host, controlling its mind and behaviour, leading to the nickname ‘zombie fungi’. In the second part of the story, we learn that the human body now carries animal, mineral and botanical genes, and with contact this increases, bringing into question the human-centric narrative that is navigated through practices of Otherkin, Therian and Skinwalkers.

Analogous to this, Memeplex™ as an exhibition acts as a body to host a contagion of performance, video, images and objects by Minjeong An, David Cronenberg, Botond Keresztesi, Kinke Kooi, Jack Jubb, Isaac Lythgoe, Katja Novitskova, Transformella malor (fed and cared for by JP Raether), Jonas Schoeneberg and Suzanne Treister.

A sound score, composed by Yikki underpins the exhibition, flooding into each room amongst medical equipment coloured infirmary green and Baker-Miller pink. This speculative organism has been grown by Joey Holder and Omsk Social Club responding to contemporary memetic currents and viral infrastructures.

This exhibition has been kindly and generously supported by PACT Zollverein.

Performance:

Transformella is an artificial identity fed and cared for by JP Raether in formation with multiple others. As part of their site-specific appearances these humanoid AlterIdentities engage an elaborated vocabulary. In their performative, distributed social interventions they research, teach and tell stories in the public realm. Transformella delves into human reproduction and biotechnologies. Together with the invited public they roam choreographically the infrastructures of globalised capitalist systems of commodity circulation.

11.12.21 — 5.2.22

w/ Minjeong An, David Cronenberg, Botond Keresztesi, Kinke Kooi, Jack Jubb, Isaac Lythgoe, Katja Novitskova, Transformella malor (fed and cared for by JP Raether), Jonas Schoeneberg, Suzanne Treister

Engineered by Omsk Social Club and Joey Holder

[Seventeen](Seventeen)

'Old Sun, New Sun', Group Show Curated by Andrew Sung Taek Ingersoll at Et al., S

'The Houses Of The Serpent Bearer. The 9th House' by Mónica Mays & Flora Yin-Wong

'Dream Archipelago', Group Show Curated by Sergey Guskov at Smena, Kazan

'Eternal Flame', Group Show at Shore, Vienna

'Cosmovisions', Group Show at Medusa Offspace, Brussels

'No Time To Explain' by Paul Robas at Solito, Naples

'Night Rider' by Yan Posadsky at Devyatnadtsat’, Moscow

'Funding Emotions' by Magnus Frederik Clausen and Kaare Ruud at Cantina, Aarhus

'What I felt for you was love', Group Show at Afternoon Projects, Vancouver

'Mirror Stage' by Bora Akinciturk and Ella Fleck at Shipton, London

‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die!’ by Ian Swanson at Plague Space, Krasnodar

'VEGAN' by Jack Jubb at house of spouse, Vienna

'Fresh Hell' by Jonah Pontzer at Rose Easton, London

'It's quite like Guggenheim', Group Show at Ringcenter 1, Berlin

'OUTER DARKNESS', Off-Site Project by Allyson Packer in 1698 GALISTEO, SANTA FE

'mareas' by Elizabeth Burmann at Galeria Patricia Ready, Santiago

'Vape Cloud Premonition' by Sam Hutchinson at Forth, Nottingham

'Punch-Drunk' by Yutaro Ishikawa at LAID BUG, Tokyo

Next Page