Front cover: depicting Princess Peach at a rave, of course. Also depicting the importance of sheer hope that underpins Absurdism as a whole.Absurd Renaissance
Absurdism is the school of thought that believes that life is underpinned by an unavoiable meaninglessness and therefore we should not waste any time looking for such. Life is to be experienced, celebrated infact.
This perfect-bound publication acts as the handbook to what I’ve now dubbed Contemporary Absurdism, or the ‘Absurd Rennaisance’.
While Absurdism may be alive and well to younger, more ‘online’, generations under the guise of ‘hopecore’ or memes: this project aims to introduce the Absurdism to those without prior exposure to this content.
Production
This publication was produced using perfect binding, involving roughing up one side of the publication and glueing all pages together.
Depicting life’s absurdity by montaging different examples of life being absurd without any need for creative intervention. McDonald’s burning at the hands of climate change, a nazi salute on a world stage in 2025, a man changing a light bulb with his cat emulating his behaviour.These images were important as it shows how the internet is evolving into a parody of itself. One low-res meme, screenshotted and scribbled over, producing an even more chaotic visual experience.Pairing quotes from Albert Camus and alike with memes to introduce said humour.Introducing Absurdism
This section introduces philosophers like Albert Camus and the absurdist philosophy, explaining the difference between Absurd and Absurd*ism* and slowly introducing less extreme memes and ways they can evolve humour.
Using a tweet from the USA’s election day to hilight the importance of creativity in dark times.Hilighting how poorly understood The Theatre of The Absurd originally was, and why that was important.Waiting For Godot: a pivotal piece of absurd theatre that depicted two men waiting in turmoil for a man that isn’t coming.The Theatre of The Absurd
This section introduces Absurdism as a creative movement and explains it’s relation to socio-ecological issues at the time, introducing the idea that perhaps some of these issues are relevant once again.
QR code linking to Kamala Harris ‘coconut tree’ Tik Tok, a prime example of Contemporary Absurdism.Intentionally combining poor quality screenshots of screenshots with my scanned handwriting and a barely legible font choice.Introducing the assda of devalued quality, using less usual paragraph styles and the Charli xcx ‘BRAT’ house style to reference examples of modern day absurd media.There is no single human experience that makes more sense than the other.Absurd Renaissance
This final section takes the ideas of subverting artistic norms and puts them into practice in a way that emulates modern humour. Featuring a myriad of low resolution memes, wholesome widespread images and intentionally obtuse spreads.