propaganda office

2021, promo video, 4:07

2020-ongoing, videos and stories disseminated in public sphere, research collaborator: Sofia Grigoriadou

Propaganda Office is a long-term artistic research project and a series of public interventions. Concerned with present-day propaganda mechanisms, we are particularly focusing on strategies developed and applied to conspiracy theory narratives. Conspiracy theories are not a new phenomenon. They have been promising a sense of control and meaning in an increasingly complex world. We nevertheless trace conspiracy theory thinking in fear mongering narratives that promote racism, blood libel, religious hatred, xenophobia, nationalism.

Today, systematic lies, fake news and conspiracy fictions become dangerous weapons aided by widespread tools that offer quick and easy data dissemination. They have been proven extremely useful in the manipulation of political movements, while at the same time conspiracy theory followers are being heavily instrumentalized by controversial political agendas.

In the framework of Propaganda Office, we develop a model to confront conspiracy theories. We initiate a mechanism consisting of small-scale subversions. By embracing the tactics of camouflage, we produce material with potentially viral quality that could undermine conspiracy theories using their own means. With strategic and persistent action, we believe this mechanism could disarm particular conspiracy theories and gradually discredit the seemingly systematic, yet spontaneously constructed network of beliefs and narratives they participate in.

Propaganda Office was realised within the framework of the European Media Art Platforms EMARE program at m-cult with support of the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union.