Oltre la rappresentazione: come il meme ri-produce il reale

This paper argues that the digital revolution entails a profound reconfiguration and centralization of images, revealing a crisis of the tra ditional paradigm that equates image with representation. Within this crisis of representation, the Internet meme emerges as a paradigmatic form of contemporary visuality. Rather than claiming to represent an external object or reality, the meme operates as an object of play, ma nipulation, and continuous reworking. As such, it exemplifies a broader transformation in the use of images today: images no longer primar ily function to mirror the real, but to actively re-elaborate it. Framed within an ontological perspective on dwelling, the paper conceptualizes the meme as an icono-linguistic and multimodal dispositif that contrib utes to the constitution of digital experience itself. Drawing on Heideg ger, Günther Anders, and media theory, it contends that media are not neutral instruments but ontologically charged structures that reshape both the form of the world and the subject’s mode of inhabiting it.