Janice Miyagi

The Idle Chatter of the Crowd: An Archive of Memes

As we continue to occupy the internet as a space of visual metaphors, designers must acknowledge the ways in which the rapid dissemination of tropes, architectural and otherwise, can conceal and obscure embedded narratives.

This project imagines a virtual repository where the history of any meme — the ultimate trope — might be discovered and connected to those that share its likeness. The repository employs the dissonant theoretical and organizational structures of the tree diagram and the rhizome to simultaneously catalogue the past and anticipate the future, so that we may understand the scope and history of the tropes we perpetuate.

Advisors: Fredrik Hellberg and Lara Lesmes Winter 2021