Merging both 'Agitation' and 'propaganda' together, Agit prop gave rise to the cliche of political propagandistic art and design, which expanded from its foundation in Russia to all over Europe, with the formation of the 'agit prop' theatre, eventually spreading abroad to America. As an agit prop initiative of the 1920s, the theatre was deemed to be highly politicised and leftist in political behaviour and attributes. In Russia the theatre's productions were notable for their use of cardboard characters that represented both the wicked, and good willed, with a reputation for ridiculing capitalism and any train of political thought outside that of Soviet Communism. It was as a result of the Americanised twist on Agit Prop theatre in the US, that the Agit Prop became more generalised to meaning any kind of highly politicised form of art or design. Under Western context however, agit prop, in contrast to it's emotive propaganda origins in Soviet Russia, was employed as negative propaganda that visually communicated left winged socialist ideals to the extreme, particularly within the UK during the 1980s.
The main medium of Agit Prop has always been poster design, on which a political message was printed, alongside its propaganda image, as posters could be mass produced, were cost effective and could be printed on the go, particularly when Agit Prop groups were to travel across country and send their message to villages and towns. Following the October Revolution of 1917, Russian Agit prop groups would travel by train throughout Russia, broadcasting propaganda through performances and re-enactments. Agit Prop designers tied to these would reproduce Russian Constructivist posters that made use of both 'agitation' and political propaganda, and throw them out the window to passing villages.
Agit Prop overall, was not limited to art and design, however its political messages were streamed across all matter of the arts, including literature, music, and drama. Furthermore, Agit Prop's approach to agitating the emotions and working the minds of the public varied greatly between the western world and the continent of Europe. Europe, including Russia, focused on generating positive ideals, such as the benefits of government and political reforms, and the economical and agricultural growth of the state, through bold and emotive and design principles and elements, including bright, vibrant colours and constructivist line work. On the other hand, the western world employed Agit Prop, for negative connotations exploiting left winged political extremist points of views that brainwashed and manipulated the public and thus distorted public opinion.
Russian Agit Prop Design, during the Soviet Union:
Culture Jamming
Culture Jamming formed out of the 1980s, as the refreshed and revised contemporary take on Industrial Revolution's Agit Prop. Culture Jamming, ironically, is a culture in itself, coined in 1984, that strives to challenge and criticise the material values of low, popularised culture, and, through confronting imagery that is generally amusing but in necessary circumstances, disturbing, deconstructs commodity fetishism, erasing the glamour, sugar coating over an object, to reveal its true colours and purpose. More often than not, culture jamming takes advertised products out of their commodity context, and manipulates their meaning with alternate graphics and text, to give light to the negatives of the product concerned, as well as agitate the minds of consumers within the product's cultural interest groups. Inspired by both the political propaganda style of Agit Prop, and the radical initiatives of anti-consumerist social movements, and entwined with Guerilla semiotics and night discourse, Culture Jamming groups, such as Sydney's 'Bugger Up' group in the 80's, employ methods of subvertising to expose the truth behind the political assumptions associated with commercial culture and challenge commercial companies to lift their game and revise their moral beliefs and attitudes. Associated with the common tactics of subvertising in context of culture jamming is logo manipulation, ridiculing contemporary fashion and its impact on culture, and distorting product images, in order to question and challenge "what's cool", in today's popular culture, and to test the actual level of personal freedom and satisfaction that derives from product consumption.
In certain circumstances culture jamming employs mass media to produce ironic and satirical commentaries on commodity fetishism and associated consumer goods, appropriating the original message of the medium and turning that message on itself, to make a critical statement and to contradict the selling proposition that product's company wishes to make. Generally culture jamming arises out of a direct reaction against social conformity, to oppose against mass production, and provide proof for the ways in which conformity in culture damages and poisons the mind of society and its potential to strip away the individuality of the consumer. The vast majority of culture jamming groups focus on critically challenging the status quo of social conformity and commodity fetishism and to react against the artificial glamour of consumerism created through contemporary advertising, however, culture jamming can at times also be targeted towards creating new forms of cultural production through more comical and emotive material.
Spoof Advertising Examples of Culture Jamming
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