Propaganda is not merely about sending and manipulating a single message, but aims to construct new realities as such. Propagandists are not interested in operating within an existing reality, but they want to create new worlds. And propaganda can as such be understood as a “performance of power”: the performance of infrastructures of mass communication combined with the visual, narrative, performative and theatrical means needed to “stage” a new reality.
Following this principle of propaganda analysis, Jonas Staal’s film “Propaganda Theater” showcased a hybrid collection of examples of propaganda’s staging of new realities: from Vladislav Surkov, a dramaturg, that became a central ideologue to script Vladimir Putin’s doctrine of “sovereign democracy,” to the massive theatrical pre-staging of wars by the US military in Fort Irwin. The video shows how artists, filmmakers, game designers, architects, literary writers, theater makers and other cultural workers form an essential part to make the scripts, stages and mass performance of contemporary propaganda theaters a reality.
After the film, we discussed with Jonas Staal, the author of "Propaganda Theatre", issues related to propaganda as a technique of constructing reality, both historically and today.
This event was a part of the Islands of Kinship project, supported by the EU Creative Europe Programme.