Lauren Kaelin, founder of the popular website When Parents Text, has discovered a new passion for the internet. In her project Benjameme, she makes paintings of memes. It’s that simple. I love it when people delve deeper into something considered by many to be mostly internet junk. To me, it’s more of a product of a new way of thinking, creating, and communicating on collaborative level, so I can’t help being a fan of her work. Warning: this interview contains art talk, but hopefully it’s balanced by the cats.

Motherboard: Hi Lauren! To start things off as cliché as possible, what exactly is it that draws you to the field of internet memes?

Same as everyone: they make me laugh.

As good a reason as any—probably even the best. Your project is called ‘Benjameme,’ a name that draws on the work of Walter Benjamin. In his essay ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction‘ he states that a reproduction of an artwork loses the ‘aura’ of the original. Yet memes are almost completely reliant on reproduction. Is the Benjameme project some kind of rebuttal of Benjamin’s work, or do you still agree with this?

Benjameme attempts to create an aura where none previously existed. In a way, I try to manufacture an aura. I don’t see it so much as a rebuttal of Benjamin’s work, but as a recontextualization. My goal is to have people think about the images they see on a daily basis in a different way, which I think is in line with Benjamin.

Sneezing Panda

Personally, I believe memes can be considered the ‘pop art’ of our generation. What do you think?

Interesting! It’s a really strange phenomenon, right? You can put Impact font over anything and it suddenly enters a whole new realm of relevance.

I don’t think the people who make memes are consciously trying to impact (haha!) the art world. Warhol and other pop artists were consciously working against the accepted norms of the art world; they were being intentionally divisive and satirical. The internet has always been a bit of a free for all, so it’s hard to be satirical of the internet within the internet. But taking the subject of “the internet” and simply making it dimensional is very satirical.

Limitation and authenticity are concepts that are losing quite some value in the digital age. Yet your paintings are unique and therefore very limited indeed. Would you say the choice to make paintings of memes is more a parody of these previous notions or a way to introduce limitation in the world of internet memes?

I think introducing limitation is my way of parodying.

Keyboard Cat

Your paintings have a very distinct, almost cubist style. When it comes to painters, who are your biggest influences?

Thank you! I love Lucian Freud and Alice Neel. I like paintings that look like paint.

Does the fact that your paintings of memes become memes themselves make your head spin just as much as it does mine? This is all getting really meta.

Yes! But I also think the prints of these memes are an important component. Taking the new “original” and reproducing it, which then gets viewed and shared as a tangible “art object” all over the world. Granted, I’ve sold only a few hundred prints and thousands have viewed these paintings on the internet, but I like that both models are at work.

Overly Attached Girlfriend

What do you consider the worst meme ever? One so bad that you’d never paint it?

Hah! It’s important to me that my paintings stand alone and be aesthetically sound without the knowing the meme. Scumbag Steve probably won’t make the cut. Or if I don’t find a meme funny, I won’t paint it. And I don’t paint things that are already someone’s art, like a cartoon or drawing. I think Surprised Patrick is amazing, but I don’t know how it would work as a Benjameme.

Finally, to end things as cliché as we started, what can we expect of you in the future? Will you focus more on this research into reproduction or do you have other plans more in the line of When Parents Text?

Taking Benjamemes further! I’ve been approached about gallery representation and shows of the original paintings. I can also envision a beautiful Bejameme book for your coffee table with more about Benjamin, and the history of the memes themselves.

Aw yeah! Looking at my coffee table, I suddenly see a horrible gaping void. Can’t wait!