Meme-tivism Station: Rethinking the Environmental Cost of AI

Sinem Görücü , Georgia Panagiotidou

Englisch
Installation
Medien & Öffentlichkeit
#KI #Nachhaltigkeit #Climate
A colorful digital collage of various internet memes over a blurred, neon-hued colorful background. In the center, bold neon yellow text on a purple cloudy shape reads: "MEME-TIVISM," with a subtitle below: "rethinking the environmental cost of AI". Surrounding the central text there are overlapping memes about the environmental cost of AI, all layered to create a chaotic, playful composition.
Info
The Meme-tivism Station invites people who shape AI, who build, use, question, regulate or get affected by AI systems to explore the collaboratively created online meme library and create their own memes about the environmental cost of AI, using humor and sarcasm to ask uncomfortable, playful, and unresolved questions around the environmental cost of AI systems.

While the environmental cost of AI has become increasingly apparent, the understanding surrounding its impact is often shaped by corporate messaging or guilt-inducing media narratives; leaving little room for the perspectives and lived experiences of people who shape AI, who build, use, question, regulate or get affected by these technologies. 

Drawing inspiration from the climate justice movement and online subcultures, this project explores how humor and sarcasm can be used to rethink, surface and ease uncomfortable conversations, create counter-narratives, and open space for conversation through meme-creation.

The station invites participants to explore and contribute to the growing Meme-tivism library online, created through a series of hands-on workshops. It allows visitors to both browse the library through an interactive installation and also rapidly create memes using the Meme-tivism toolkit, either digitally or manually. Visitors can drop by the station throughout re:publica 2026 to experience it.

Speaker