“We hoped the image would circulate online, evolve, and live on as a meme: reshaped, recontextualized, and endlessly shared. It didn’t. Nothing happened. The image failed to circulate. The algorithm yawned.”
– Italian internet artists
Eva & Franco Mattes, on the slow burn of
Mickey Is Died (2008-20). “Digital Ghosts,” a recent show at
Museo Madre in Naples (IT), revealed that the photo of a self-destructing Mickey Mouse plush became an internet hit, after all. By 2020—twelve years later—it had found its way into politics, music, sports, and manga, often miscaptioned as “Mickey is Died,” the artists write on Instagram.
