Slopfest #50 · 1976 · Vienna

The Word Is Coined

A biologist invented the word 'meme'. We could not wait for the internet, so we started early.

Black-and-white action photos on a contact sheet: guests in white smocks splashed dark, a huge poured painting behind them, SLOPFEST #50 on a smock

Venue: Arena, St. Marx
Attendance: 2,480
Guest of honour: Hermann Nitsch (poured one bucket of red and let it go viral)
Fun fact: 1 bucket, 2,480 smocks, 0 still white

What happened

Guests passed a single joke from person to person, mutating it each time, until only the back row understood it. Hermann Nitsch, guest of honour, tested the theory with red: he poured one bucket, and by midnight every wall, smock and Würstel in the hall was red. The committee called it the first viral image. The Arena is still finding red in the corners.

Elsewhere in 1976

Richard Dawkins coins the word 'meme' in The Selfish Gene, describing units of culture that spread by imitation.

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