The Sprawl. Propaganda About Propaganda

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This documentary by the Dutch design and research studio Metahaven emphatically argues that the internet has become a disruptive geopolitical super weapon. “The Sprawl” is potent propaganda about propaganda, an unbroken digital scream and a paranoid trip of ones and zeroes. The internet is not only for cat films and digestible morsels of digital democracy. In fact, these only distract us from more urgent matters. Here, Dutch digital design collective Metahaven poses pressing questions about the internet few dare pose. Who benefits from social media? Does Adobe software express an ideology? Is the internet facilitating aesthetic terrorism? The result is an unbroken digital scream, proclaiming that the internet has become a disruptive super weapon on the geopolitical stage. “The Sprawl (Propaganda About Propaganda)” is also a paranoid, digital trip in which form and content continually influence each other. With restless, futurist beats by Kuedo, far-reaching green-screen manipulations and other glitch-art elements, internet aesthetics are obviously a source of inspiration for the filmmakers. At the same time, everything related to the internet is a target in this documentary.