The Idol Shop: Toppled Stillness explores idolatry and iconoclasm evolution from the public realm to the digital realm, focusing on how memes operate as instruments of political expression, serving simultaneously as acts of veneration and destruction. By analyzing how digital publics use memes to elevate political figures into mythic icons or dismantle them through satire and remixing, the research connects contemporary meme culture to historical traditions of visual power and propaganda. By extracting, reinterpreting, recontextualizing, and layering these icons, the project reveals how digital imagery functions as a new form of political iconography and collective expression in the algorithmic age. 

The Idol Shop: Toppled Stillness is a mid-term seminar by Mostafa Youssef, PhD researcher under the supervision of Volkmar Mühleis (supervisor), Ala Younis (co-supervisor), Inge Gobert and Kristof Titeca (members of the supervisory committee).

This seminar is open to all (PhD) researchers from LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven, University of Antwerp and PXL/UHasselt. It is made possible thanks to "meet the jury"-funding of the Doctoral School of the Humanities & Social Sciences Group of KU Leuven.

Programme

• 2.00pm – 2.15pm: Welcome and introduction by Volkmar Mühleis
• 2.15pm – 3.45pm: Keynotes by Ala Younis and Kristof Titeca
• 3.45pm – 4.00pm: break
• 4.00pm – 5.00pm: Presentation by and installation visit with Mostafa Youssef in the Carré
• 5.00pm – 6.00pm: Roundtable discussion moderated by Volkmar Mühleis with Mostafa Youssef, Ala Younis, Kristof Titeca, Inge Gobert, Nicola Setari, Didier Deschrijver and Anneke Rombaut

Speakers & Panelists

• Mostafa Youssef is an artist and PhD researcher based in Cairo, Egypt. 
• Volkmar Mühleis is a professor in philosophy and aesthetics at LUCA School of Arts Ghent and Brussels and connected to the research cluster Art, Space and Sound in Ghent. 
• Ala Younis is a Kuwaiti research-based visual artist, painter, and curator, based in Amman, Jordan.
• Kristof Titeca is a professor at the Institute of Development Policy and Management at the University of Antwerp. 
• Nadia Sels is a professor at the research group Media, Arts and Design at the University of Hasselt and PXL.
• Inge Gobert is a graphic designer, lecturer and coordinator in the Media & Information Design programme at LUCA School of Arts Brussels.