14/03/2025
Author: Ezequiel Soriano Gómez
Programme: Doctoral Programme in Arts and Humanities
Language: Spanish
Supervision: Elisenda Ardevol
Faculty / Institute: Doctoral School UOC
Subjects: Art
Key words: Vernacular creativity, Digital ethnography, Digital culture, Memes, Popular culture
Area of knowledge: Arts and Humanities
Abstract:
This PhD research explores the tensions between different modes of organizing vernacular creativity on the internet, expressed through memes, micro-musical genres, or grotesque images. By hybridizing ethnography and artistic experimentation, I describe the creative dynamics and value-making processes of meme creators and their communities. This post-digital ethnography focuses on the various contexts in which memes circulate, from private chats to museums, analyzing their trajectories and the value translations that occur within them. By understanding meme-making as a phenomenon at the intersection of popular humor, mass communication, and artistic practice, it offers new perspectives on issues such as viralization, the professionalization of content creators on digital platforms, authorship, copying, intellectual property, and the different ways in which creativity is undergone.