Art is an expression using creative skills, mostly visual. Many revolutions throughout history have shifted the forms of art. In the beginning, art was just drawings of symbols which pictorially represented the real-world objects. Primitive men used such symbols to depict the objects they saw. Later on, men drew symbols to tell stories. The very first form of visual arts are paintings drawn on caves, describing stories and real events of the primitive people’s daily life. Slowly the usage of colors, canvas, and models had increased. The paintings evolved to much more than just describing events and telling stories. Art has its associations with various rebellions in history. For suppose, Graffiti is still considered illegal in many countries. But, it had impacted many people. Graffiti was a revolution of people who were repressed by the governments. Graffiti had encouraged and sparked an anarchist ideology in people. Of course, it is vandalism. But it did have its moments in history.
Not only Graffiti, but many art forms are rebellious and revolutionary. Renaissance is a movement that resurrected art. Since then, artists have experimented with expressing various things through art. Cinema has been the most prominent visual art revolution! Cinema is moving pictures, and pictures are more realistic and digital paintings. Cinema can convey a lot more than what paintings, music, theaters, and dances can convey. Cinema is a combination of all such arts. Since Cinema happened, there have been beautiful transformations in the perception of art. There happened this moment called ‘post-modernism’ which broke all the existing rules of art. Post-modernism is a revolution that spread the thought that art is free, and it is anyone’s to use. The term pastiche has come into the light. Pastiche is an artwork that is an imitation of other artworks. For example, Pulp Fiction is a movie that refers and uses scenes and dialogues from a lot of movies released before it. At the same time, it is not mere plagiarism. A new meaning and something original was created through imitation.
After a long while, right in front of us millennials, the birth of new art form had taken place, and we still haven’t noticed it as art yet. The internet memes! Yes! They are the new art form. If art is an expression, then memes are expressing and hence art! The earlier form of memes were screenshots of movies or series with text written above and below the picture. Then the creators went to the length of creating characters and comics to make a satire nf their real-life activities that are neither represented in movies nor paintings these days. Movies have become more of a spectacle. Hence memes have evolved from just being comical posts on Facebook to some expressive posts which can express a lot more than just jokes. Memes are a new revolution, and they are a part of post-modernism.
Memes use screenshots of pictures, TV/Web series, and stock photos. They are un-copyrighted work, and hence some claim they are plagiarism, but they’re just pastiche! They change the context of the actual picture and use it to express the creator’s thoughts. Memes are now used to criticize governments, conventional systems, and many such. Memes can be used to convey a lot of realistic things that happen in our daily lives. I believe that the next level of civil unrest and civil wars happen online with the use of memes.
Memes are the new Graffiti.
Penfluky 