On Rafman: Audrey Jo Pfister, Nicholas Carah, Maria Gemma Brown, Kyle Weise (Free via registration)

Join us at the IMA for our third and final On Rafmanlectures—a series of short presentations by academics, artists, curators, and writers that unpick the central themes of Memento Hikikomori.

Audrey Jo Pfister on ‘Notice me senpai, notice me!’ Simps, -cels, larp and Jon Rafman

Pfister considers the web of fandom, in-group signalling, memetic warfare, and the parasocial both in and around the work of Jon Rafman. From incellectual minion accounts to the fan-fictional work of Twee Whistler, Rafman’s audiences take his methods of digital scraping, edge-lording, aggregation, in-group references all back in on himself. Like a hikikomori who may pick up a dirty sock, folded into itself, we pull it apart to see that it’s made of the same fabric, no clear inside or outside.

Nicholas Carah and Maria Gemma Brown on Culture That Eats its Own Vomit

Jon Rafman’s Main Stream Media Network looks backwards to MTV, reflects Instagram and TikTok in the present, and heralds the arrival of a generative AI slopworld. A pulsating stream of non-narrative pure presence tuned by algorithmic machines. The descent of platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Rafman’s Main Stream Media Network into the slop economy are characterised by failures of cultural form, intimate publics, and in their own ambition to become a superapp. What they have succeeded in doing is creating a mode of non-nutritious, synthetic but biodegradable culture that eats its own vomit.

Kyle Weise on Nine Eyes: A Google Collab

Kyle Weise digs into Jon Rafman’s ongoing Nine Eyes project, where street photography meets desktop voyeurism and where corporate databases are leveraged as an arena for expanding human/machine collaboration.

Registration is essential.