CREATION, SUBVERSION, AND RESISTENCE!

Memefest, the International Festival of Radical Communication- born in Slovenia and rapidly reaching a critical mass worldwide- is proud to announce its fifth annual competition. Once again, Memefest is encouraging students, professionals, writers, artists, designers, thinkers, philosophers, and counter-culturalists to submit their work to our panel of renowned judges. This year, jury members will include Richard Barbrook, esteemed author, research pioneer, radio vigilante, and critic of neo-liberalism, along with radical designers and activists Sandy Kaltenborn, Kernow Craig, Paul Shoebridge and Jason Grant, Clinical Psychologist and “Bag news” blog author Dr. Michael Shaw and design critic Kenneth Fitzgerald.
Students who work with the written word can respond to Richard Barbrook’s own article The High-Tech Gift Economy, which makes the ominous but relevant claim that, because of the realities of market capitalism, the utopia of an anarcho-communist gift economy on the internet is a deluding fiction. Artists and graphic designers can create static and interactive works in response to The Declaration Towards a Global Ethic, a call to “spiritual arms” and the creation of a collective consciousness.

Non-students, and those whose work doesn’t fit in the box of conventional communications, can enter the visionary Beyond… category, where the name of the game is challenging mainstream practices and beliefs! Absolutely anything innovative, either written or visual, is acceptable, so long as it challenges mainstream modes of communication. Check out some examples and the winners from the 2005 and 2004 sites at http://beyond.memefest.org. Beyond… is open to non-students as well!

Memefest occurs almost completely online, and all entries will be available for full access and commentary in the site galleries. In 2005, Memefest received almost 500 entries from participants of every continent on the globe (’cept Antarctica). We hope to get bigger, and to spread more of those good infectious ideas, so keep thinking- and producing. Check out the beta version of our 2006 web site for more information: http://www.memefest.org Deadline for submissions is May 20th 2006.

Subvert, Create, Enjoy!
Patricia Laboca
Memefest
Contact us: memefest at memefest dot org