Where else – whether in a piece of writing that you find outside of the reading list, or in someone else’s creative practice – can you find evidence of a similar or opposing position? 

In 2016, Metahaven created their first ever feature length documentary —— The Sprawl. It is a documentary that contains a lot of shards of information, which were non-linear clips regarding different political issues, interviews about propaganda, and poetry. On the website of The Sprawl, which is an internet adapted version of the documentary, there is a description of the film, and it is said to be “Propaganda About Propaganda”. The whole project centres around how propaganda can take form in the new era of technology. Rather than simply disinformation, an interviewee in the documentary stated that propaganda of the new era “undermines the very idea that truth is provable”. Metahaven also positions themselves to alert designers in general. In an interview with iD, they explained that designers are “moving from a more reactive to proactive position” and tools are more accessible than ever that makes the process more widespread.  

The position of Methaven is all about raising the awareness of propaganda. They did not explicitly criticise certain political entities, nor did they take sides on a particular alternative narrative of a political issues. Instead, they interviewed people from different fields describing what propaganda is with examples and how it takes form in the age of social media. With the example regarding the alternative narratives of the struck down Malaysian plane, they said in an interview that “At the far end of transparency… everything can be questioned.” They suggested that information is more open to interpretations and hence misinformed themselves by readers.  Also, in an interview concluding that “The idea that propaganda is something exclusively done by Russia and ISIS is something we completely disagree with”.  They were saying that each side of the story were creating their own propaganda, we should recognise that propaganda is ubiquitous. Their position regarding propagandas in general is to be cautious about them. This resonates with my current project very much. Though it is not in as seriously toned as The Sprawl, my project is exploring how text and image itself can interact and manipulate information.  One of the fragment videos of The Sprawl has words saying ”objectivity is a myth” and the objectivity is “propose to us and impose on us”.  This is one of the quotes that describes my own position regarding the news. As the current scope of my project is more focused on the news, I think Metahaven’s comment on objectivity is very much accurate. Another subtle position they also included was that the form of the documentary itself is also claimed to be a propaganda itself, Metahaven also created a self-aware narrative as a designer. This echoes with one of the interviewee in the documentary, journalist Pomerantsev, commenting that internet-age propaganda was “an end unto itself”. 

On Metahaven’s comment regarding transparency can lead to multiple alternative misinterpretation of the truth, it rings on my belief in relativism. Jean François Lyotard suggested that these are Grand Narratives that competing to tell the “truth” while there is none as universal and inherently true. I hope my project can discuss the matter.  

Reference 

Metahaven (2016) The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda). Available at: https://sprawl.space/ (Accessed: 17 May 2021). 

Turichiva , S. (2016) ‘metahaven are ​making propaganda to fight propaganda’, i-D. Available at: https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/mbv8d4/metahaven-are-making-propaganda-to-fight-propaganda (Accessed: 17 May 2021).

Saxelby, R. (2016) ‘Metahaven Is Breaking The Propaganda Machine’, Fader. Available at: http://www.thefader.com/2016/05/06/metahaven-the-sprawl-propaganda-interview (Accessed: 17 May 2021).