Internet Core: Tiny mythologies

Internet Core : Tiny mythologies  is a tribal portal to a space of crossover, critical reflection and collective action around internet aesthetics and subcultures. In this two-day meeting, we will share experiences about cores that emerge as forms of resistance within commercial social networks and that converge with dynamics developed in dark and deep spaces of the web. The event will bring together artists, users, cultural agents and theorists, and will include talks, performances and roundtables with the aim of promoting a unit of artistic research on the Internet Core condition and avoiding the programmatic isolation of platforms. 

The Internet Core condition emerges from the perspective of digital natives, the dystopian present and the profound questioning of binary structures - digital/physical, real/virtual, human/machine, material/immaterial. In a purely corporate online present dominated by private companies that support worrying dynamics, Internet Core emerges as a response from artistic practice that brings to light different ways of being online. On the other hand, from a chronological review, this condition brings to the table perspectives and positions critical of the ‘post-internet’ label, whose attempt to dissolve the boundaries between artistic disciplines ended up consolidating a concrete list of privileged artists. 

At the gathering on 24-25 September, we will recreate our tiny mythologies around a post-digital campfire, narrating personal narratives, and sharing emotions and reflections of our online activity. Through hyper-specific identities, fandom, shitposting, cores, AI slop and inspirational image archives, we will find signifiers of this small-scale present.  

IC held its first edition "Internet Core. Aesthetics of Digital Disaster" on 3 and 4 April 2025 organised by Diana Millán, Ezequiel Soriano, and Geert Lovink at Santa Mònica and Hangar, Barcelona.  

Participants: Netsequé, Laura Paloma, Mariem Iman, Gabriele de Seta, The Void, Voidsent, Ambientador.exe, Leah J. Liu, Andrés C. Sacristán, Kafheina, Héctor Fuertes 

Organised by: Medialab Matadero and Nigredo.tv.  
Coordination: Diana Millán and Ezequiel Soriano.  
In collaboration with: Institute of Network Cultures (HvA), DeVisiones (UAM), Mediaccions (UOC). 

Website: networkcultures.org/internetcore 
Image: @4nd7ro  
Rapporteur: Jardines Vallados + @ivanmcgill 

Date: 24-25 September from 18:00 to 22:00h  
Location: Nave una, Medialab Matadero  
Language: Spanish and English  
Free admission, subject to capacity

 

Program

⁺˚⋆｡°✩September 24th, 2025₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺

18:00 Opening
Opening by the coordinators (Diana Millán and Ezequiel Soriano).

18:15 Talk by Ezequiel Soriano
Ezequiel Soriano is an anthropologist and artist interested in orality, copying, and machine creativity. Through textual experimentation and ethnography, he engages with an ordinary, dispersed, and tactical creativity linked to the medieval and post-digital carnival.
In this talk, he will propose a reading of cores through memetics, accelerationism, and machinic creolization. By articulating lines of thought in memetic tactics, Dark Forest theories of the Internet, and the creative overflows of artificial intelligence, he will offer an anthropological vision of digital aesthetics.

18:35 Talk by Gabriele de Seta (in English with Spanish subtitles)
Gabriele de Seta is, technically, a sociologist. He is a Researcher at the University of Bergen, where he leads the ALGOFOLK project (“Algorithmic folklore: The mutual shaping of vernacular creativity and automation”) funded by a Trond Mohn Foundation Starting Grant (2024–2028). He writes about memes, deepfakes, and whatever we mean by “AI.”

19:20 Q&A

19:30 Break (10 minutes)

19:40 Conversation with Netsequé and THE VOID
The founding members of NETSEQUÉ (cementerio de pixels + doltxe gabbana) undertake an attempt at formalization: an open conversation about what NETSEQUÉ is, what form its network takes, and how it has evolved so far. While addressing niches and issues that emerge when consciously inhabiting the Internet (digital urban tribes, dark forests, webdiaries, glitch, decentralization…), we will celebrate a live JamHTML in which both in-person attendees and online participants can take part.
THE VOID (T.V.) is a research project on tactical video and an audiovisual publishing platform for practice-based research hosted at the Institute of Network Cultures. It is formed by Tommaso Campagna, Giulia Timis, and Jordi Viader. https://networkcultures.org/void/

20:40 Q&A

20:50 Break (10 minutes)

21:00 Send this to your crush right now by Mariem Iman and Laura Paloma
The person who sends you this wants you to know… 😛 The person who sends you this wants you to know… 😛 The person who sends you this wants you to know… 😛 that you are very cUuuuuuuuuuuuUuute :-* that you are very cUuuuuuuuuuuuUuute :-* that you are very cUuuuuuuuuuuuUuute :-*
Send this to your crush right now is a performative action by Laura Paloma and Mariem Imán. Using prompts, screenshots, live viewing, and direct writing, they recreate declarations of love accompanied by a hyperpop music mix by Ane Berganza. Moving across different writing and reading interfaces, they write by ear, with, against, and as the machine. Between archive, transcription, poetry, and screenshot, they unfold forms through which affections circulate in digital interactions.

⁺˚⋆｡°✩September 25th, 2025₊✩°｡⋆˚⁺

18:00 Opening
Opening by the coordinators (Diana Millán and Ezequiel Soriano).

18:05 Talk by Diana Millán aka F̵̦̉́ꫀꪖ᥅ꪶꫀᦓᦓᦔ꠸ꪖꪀꫀ
“Introduction to Internet Core Theory”
Within the framework of Laboratory 4, Weird Futures, Diana will navigate terms, reels, substacks, blogs, Mastodon posts, Discord groups, bibliographic citations, and open questions to outline some of the keys to what she calls Internet Core Theory.
In today’s context, where social networks dominate artistic circulation, the talk will argue that post-internet art must confront its own critiques and pave the way for a contemporary art created by a generation that is both delocalized and native to Web 2.0. This generation brings forward strategies within commercial networks and collective reinforcements from the “dark forests.”
In this framework, the artwork becomes a core: a product born of specific online platforms and countercultural communities. The role of the artist is crucial, acting as a translator who deciphers the meaning behind each aesthetic, guiding us back to the core of the Internet.

18:25 Talk by Andrés Cuesta Sacristán
Drawing from his own artistic work and archive, Andrés will discuss the nature and shared imaginary of the Internet, the currents emerging within it, the concept of the “new aesthetic,” and the aesthetic configurations formed by looking at the world through the web. He will also address the transition from niche to cores and how the web has shifted from an introspective platform to a space where we must resist the loss of agency and self-signification in our ethereal gardens.

18:40 Talk by Leah J. Liu
Starting from an intimate and fragmented question, Leah —artist and predoctoral researcher— asks: who am I in the post-internet era? Through her own AI-generated images —Asian women who look too much like her, yet are not— she explores a diluted, reconstructed identity obsessed with its own image. From there, she moves to the collective plane: digital nostalgia as a symptom of disorientation. This nostalgia is not a simple return to the past but a way of asking: where are we? Are we between the virtual and the physical, between lived and imagined, or between presence and loss? The intervention proposes thinking about the beauty of that loss —of place, form, certainty— as one of the essential languages of Internet aesthetics.

18:55 Q&A

19:15 Talk by Kafheina
Kafhi (better known as @Kafheiina) will narrate with humor and authenticity her decision to embrace the role of content creator, an identity she naturally found when discovering the Internet as the ultimate refuge for her geek spirit. She will explain how the web became the perfect ecosystem where her obsessive collecting of flugers—cult plush toys of dubious origin but of incalculable value to initiates—transcended mere accumulation to become the cornerstone of a life project. This intervention will defend doing geeky things so that other geeks can geek out watching them, and above all, remind the world that geeks are here to stay. “Full-on geek mode” ≽^•⩊•^≼.

19:30 Q&A

19:35 Break (15 minutes)

19:50 Conversation with Héctor Fuertes, moderated by Zony Gómez + Q&A
Héctor will present some of the results from his residency at 28044/30439 by Nigredo.tv, the independent space organizing the event together with Matadero-Medialab. Over the course of a month, guided by several mentors, he developed his project between Madrid and Cehegín (Murcia). A dancer and artist, Héctor will share his research and findings based on interviews, exploring the relationship between two archetypal figures: the pop idol and the fan. His practice focuses on the almost mystical dimension of this bond, the asymmetry of power that separates them, and the constant feedback loop between both.

20:10 Conversation between the collectives Voidsent and Ambientador, moderated by Diana Millán
A space to dialogue, share, and contrast experiences from both collectives. The discussion will address how certain Internet niches overflow into nightclubs through experimental hardcore, sound battlefield, nightnoise, knightcore, emocore, or hardfantasy.
VOIDSENT is a collective functioning as a symbiotic network between bodies, machines, and monsters, where horror vacui becomes celebration and excess becomes collective dance. Through DJ sets —from hardcore to experimental—, performances, and visuals, they create spaces where body, image, and rhythm mutually amplify one another. Their gatherings embrace maximalism and role-playing as an escape from the capitalist dark age of control and alienation, proposing alternative worlds.
Ambientador.exe. A pocket executable. Creators of experimental and collective delirium spaces, a lucid dream 🎇 a meeting place, a music battleground. Ambientador.exe is a gift. 🫣 Above all, it is a hybrid Dragon: half speedboat, half Formula 4, half airplane.

20:30 Q&A

20:45 Break (15 minutes)

21:00 Performances by Voidsent, Ambientador, and Héctor Fuertes
This activation proposes an escape from passive streaming to enforce a new use of Matadero’s Nave Una space. A symbiotic network will be woven where the bodies of the audience connect with machines, monsters, and the pocket-executable hybrid dragon. It will be an experiment in radical imagination: a lucid dream where the community becomes monstrous to celebrate its existence.

The entire event will be livestreamed by The Void and narrated by Jardines Vallados + Iván McGill.