Parasitic virus
Memes (A term coined by Richard Dawkins in 1975 in his book 'The Selfish Gene') A 'meme' is an idea which is considered to be a replicator. It parasitises people as a host vehicle, and through this process propagates itself. The word is used especially in the phrase 'meme complex', which refers to a particular group of memes which build to form an organised belief system such as a religion or an urban myth. The term connotes that humans have built their culture on a vast pool of adaptive ideas, and that this has superseded biological evolution. Recent examples of memes in action can be found in the recent on-line panic about the computer virus, 'Good Times', which, having arrived at a computer terminal as an E-mail message, was apparently capable of completely destroying the computer's hard drive and CPU. For over a year, messages of caution were distributed worldwide over the internet, and in the panic one thing was overlooked; that being that such a devastating virus is impossible to be encoded in an ASC11 E-mail transmission. The virus had existed only in the minds of on-line computer users, and never as an actual binary code. It is also suggested that the source of this virus was a repeatedly misread and misinterpreted warning against an electronic chain letter, the distribution of which violated America Online's Terms of Service.

The cultural virus is transmitted through the transference of ideas, through collective understanding. What we term "culture" cannot be fixed, captured in a frozen moment in time - it is illusory, transitional, indefinable, forever subject to change. Like the humble bacteria, we are minute, but never invisible; we are causality, the stain of our collective reason spreads throughout the whole body, change is effected by gradual increments. Corrupting ideas take the form of memes; always staining, infecting, and evolving. The seed, once sown in the public consciousness spreads and grows like a malignant cancer.
The network has power.

Contagion virus
A praised heritage which is detached from its origin and its values is unable to allow a development of a real contemporary culture. Present culture is influenced by the past but denied by its manipulated gene; heritage. It leads to an escape into an eclectic culture and the loss of responsibility and awareness for a culture with its own identity. Therefore, a heritage based culture cannot be rethought by itself - it would create its own appendix. Present culture has present movements and present thoughts with an understanding of its past; but it does not mean a cover called heritage, where the reference to the past is manipulated by keeping it alive. The only valid aspect of heritage is the reference to the past and in context to past values. Sticking to heritage leads to prevailing in a past culture and the misunderstanding of the present values which are important for a culture with its own present identity. Don't deny `your' past but deny `your' heritage - or it denies you!

People need the right to freedom of expression of opinions, information, and ideas, without interference by public or private parties. For people to exercise this fundamental right there must be free and independent channels of communication. Media should be independent from governmental, political or economic control. Commercial control of materials and infrastructures essential to the production and dissemination of newspapers magazines, and broadcast media prevent access. Free media are pluralistic media. The current trend towards the predominantly commercial provision of information and culture needs to stop.
Create your own access..

Collective virus
The reduction of the nation state by the global market negates the strategy of subverting traditional centres of power and communication. Structures of authority are tending to disperse, leaving no single centre to be 'occupied' and used to transform radically civil society. The dispersed state is more susceptible to the initiatives of social movements and citizens' groups, backed by networks of communication. These are needed to counter the new forms of censorship emerging over the past few decades; as a decentralised form of solidarity, networks are more able to develop 'underneath' and 'beyond' the structures of state power. Communication networks dispel the isolation induced by the fast-cut mass media, and enable people to act both locally and globally on related issues.
Network now!

Creativity is a collective experience, it is accumulative. The visual artifact is not a product of individual creative genius; it is an adaptation from a determined condition, built on what has gone before. We draw on the collective visual environment:- challenging, adapting, both reinforcing and opposing, growing. The viral culture contaminates and tarnishes where it feeds off its host; as a parasite it is a product of the same environment, sharing elements in a common bond of causality and development. Each needs the other, a symbiotic relationship, collective.