Turning Point - Redirecting Propaganda.

Never underestimate the amount of resources those clinging to profit and power will direct in to the manipulation of a message. Afterall when a message holds little true and good in it, it requires massaging, manipulating, to get it to fit down your audiences throat.

They will do all they can to research how you respond to different stimuli, to find your breaking point in attention or outrage, to shape the sounds that will either spark your anger or put you to sleep. They know the power of a ridiculous nickname, and how to make you powerless through intentionally afflicting you with apathy.

We need to accept the full extent of what we face. Propaganda is not just posters, it never really was. You may not think its in every facet of your life, but it is. Those memes arent all organic, the choice of your leaders clothing and hairstyle is very intentional even if to some it seems ridiculous, the magazines and newspapers all have a role to play, those artists and designers conscripted by capitalism have no choice but to make weapons wielded against you.

It is of course then tempting to dismiss these tools, the visual languages they shape, the placement of pattern, or method of propagation, as the methods of the enemy, and ones you do not wish to use.

Whilst their are certainly times when we should stick to these ideals, there are many other times when doing so is a mistake, in doing so you surrender that playing field to them, you let their flag fly unchecked and burn your own simply so as not to have used the same medium.

You let the villain keep their mask on, let them lurk behind their emerald curtain. This cannot be accepted.

One example, pictured below (Barbara Kruger - Your Body is a Battleground) is a fantastically digestible display of this. It is direct and clear in its denotations and connotations, It amplifies everything said in every women's magazine and middling excuse for a 'Newspaper'. It takes their knowledge on colour theory and composition, turns it up to 11 and lays the message bare. In doing so it makes it difficult to see anything but it when looking at the pieces it takes from. It taints the well the gossip rags take from.

But there are other more complex -and perhaps morally grey- ways to implement these tools. The Yes Men are an activist duo who very literally fight fire with fire. For every bit of corporate double speak they make a triplicate, the lies by omission they make direct admissions, half truths they tell in full.

By building out websites that mimic companies they put out statements and even give news interviews masquerading as representatives of those companies. In doing so they draw very direct attention to those things these corporations do not wish to acknowledge. In one such instance they released statements on behalf of Dow chemical and Union Carbide explaining they had no intent on repairing the damage the company had done in Bhopal. When this failed to illicit a the response they sought, they managed to arrange a news interview as Dow representatives, and claimed U.C would be liquidating and donating the money to Bhopal.

Through doing this they forced the media conversation to focus on crimes Dow would rather us all forget, and made sure many more were aware of just how little this company had paid for these crimes. They use the fact the media machine find the taste of industry irresistible to get it to open its mouth and in doing so amplify their truth with its voice.

It is this boldness, this willingness to act we should champion in the arts. We must strip back the manipulative dressed up language to its bare naked truth. Put the corpses of the workers lost in the shop window, Point out the airbrushing on the magazine covers, Put the leaders lifted shoes in a gallery with the title "gender affirming care" and show everyone the reality on both sides of the coin.

(Barbara Kruger - Your Body is a Battleground)