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Kunstaktion Goebbels.info

Sind Nazivergleiche und -bezüge nicht längst überholt, ewiggestrig und ausgelutscht? Nun, der serbische Künstler Aleksandar Maćašev dachte sich – nicht zu Unrecht –, dass gerade in der heutigen Zeit, wo die Medienlandschaft immer stromlinienförmiger wird und sich im Mainstream wenige große Konzerne um die Meinungshheit balgen, ein Verweis auf den NS-Propagandaminister Joseph Goebbels aktueller ist denn je. Man denke nur an die einseitige Berichterstattung rund um den Libyen-Konflikt und an viele andere globalpolitische Entwicklungen, die erstaunlich unisono an die Massen vermittelt werden. Und so erstellte Maćašev im Rahmen seiner Aktion goebbels.info [1] u.a. große Plakate, die er 2005 während des Belgrad Sommer-Festivals BELEF in der Stadt verteilte, bei denen das Goebbels-Konterfei aus vielen kleinen Konzernlogos zusammengesetzt ist und die zum näheren Hinschauen animieren sollen. Ich zitiere mal die offizielle Pressemitteilung:

The campaign deals with the “Joseph Goebbels-like state” of contemporary mass communication. The campaign includes TV and radio commercials, billboards, posters, free postcards available in Belgrade bookshops and a web page that will follow the course of the campaign. The Joseph GoebbelsTM‚ campaign doesn’t promote any event and it doesn’t sell anything. It uses well elaborated media communication techniques for the purpose of contemporary art. This year’s selection of the visual arts in BELEF puts an accent on the broader possibilities of contemporary art at the beginning of the 21st century where the line between design, art, and media promotion simply vanishes.

The main visual motif of the campaign is a portrait of Joseph Goebbels composed of media and communication company logos which are visible after closer inspection. “You should look closer” could be another message of this campaign. The logo of the campaign represents four loudspeakers in the form of Nazi symbols. In the course of the campaign, Joseph Goebbels™ establishes itself as a brand and a symbol of our times. It is a work of art that speaks of mass media through mass media. On the www.goebbels.info web page you can find additional information about this project. The page will be updated daily during the course of the campaign. At the beginning of September a complete case study and reactions to the campaign will be published.

Joseph Goebbels is widely known as the Nazi minister of propaganda during World War II. Joseph Goebbels™ project tells us that Dr. Goebbels became a paradigmatic figure that established contemporary media culture and mass communication. Propaganda exists from the early days of human civilization, but it gets its full power during World War II because of the huge development of infosphere and media (radio, movies, outdoor advertising, wide circulation of printed material…). Even though intense propaganda existed in Russia, the United Kingdom and USA, Nazi propaganda with Joseph Goebbels remained the most remembered (most likely because of the post-war propaganda).

The famous statement of Dr. Goebbels that “A lie repeated a thousand times becomes a truth” is the ultimate rule of contemporary media culture. The beginning of the 21st century is marked with a global infosphere (the internet, twenty-four hour news, direct broadcasting, an unimaginable number of non-stop radio, TV and cable stations, mobile communication, etc), which carries countless messages to media consumers. The power of the infosphere lies in the fact that a large majority of recipients believe these messages really speak the truth. Real truth has become irrelevant; all we have to believe in are messages and narratives. There is no truth. A message repeated a thousand times becomes a “truth”.

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