Will You?
Premises
Propaganda is one of the most powerful weapon used in the 20th century, it’s power increased during the decades thanks to new and more sophisticated communication media, the possibility to change in a easy way every content to specification means having the control of almost every message sent to a target.
Concept
If the premises of propaganda are true, every action we take on content makes a difference.
If we take pictures of common people and add or remove features or simply modify them, the reaction of the person staring at it will change, the feelings toward that particular kind of image will either show sympathy, anger, discomfort, tenderness and all of it depends on the message that the person manipulating the image will want to send.
Will you? Is a project based on this theory, it’s a video that shows a number of images modified with the propaganda principles, it aims to show what manipulation can actually do and the power that it has on our everyday life.
In this modern age where communication is everywhere and we are overexposed to messages and information, is there any chance that we would ever be able to say if what we see and what we feel is actually a product of reality or simply a reaction to a message that someone else is filtering and eventually manipulating for us?
The questions are:
- Why would I ask myself something if someone gives me answers that keep my mind in a comfort zone?
- Am I psychologically brought to accept a positive or a negative message?
Exposing an audience to a series of repeated images with different messages: negative, positive and neutral, is a way to find out the influence that today’s media have on population, if we are really free to understand what’s behind the surface of an information, or if we are so used to get a single point of view and we get confused when we are shown different points of view and we have to search the answers for our self.
Structure
Will you? Is a video composed with the same principles of an advertising, the rhythm is fast and will not give the audience the actual time to think about the real message behind it.
Its purpose is to send a number of messages though images of people treated in different ways, for each subject there will be three different versions:
- The normal version, which presents the subject without any kind of photo editing, will represent the truth.
- The good version, which present the subject edited with ameliorative attributes, will represent the first propaganda style, the one that want the audience to perceive a message of reliability and comfort.
- The bad version, which present the subject edited with pejorative attributes, will represent the second propaganda style, which aims to give the audience negative feelings toward the message presented, discomfort and fear.
Each picture represents the truth seen from different points of view and the principles of propaganda itself.
