Recycling old strategies and devices. What remains, an art project addressing disinformation campaigns (re)using strategies to delay industry regulation

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Marloes de Valk

Este artículo describe un proyecto artístico basado en la investigación que busca identificar varias estrategias empleadas para retrasar la regulación industrial y manipular a la opinión pública durante la década de 1980, y compararlas con las estrategias usadas por plataformas de publicidad en línea como Google y Facebook, que afrontan la regulación actual. El artículo mostrará cómo estas estrategias han hilado la historia de un juego llamado What remains, auténtico de Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), con un humor oscuro que pretende crear una experiencia de lucha contra la desinformación, mostrando al jugador formas de retroceder y recuperar la voluntad aunando fuerzas con otros para cuestionar activamente la naturaleza de distintos medios informativos.
Durante la década de 1980, se intentaron y probaron varias estrategias para manipular a la opinión pública con el fin de evitar que la regulación amenazara a industrias como las del petróleo y el tabaco. Se analizarán tres estrategias con ejemplos de los años ochenta y también de la industria tecnológica de hoy, que está haciendo frente a una regulación potencial tras las elecciones de los EE. UU. en 2016 y el referéndum del Brexit, que ha hecho evidente la falta masiva de responsabilidad por parte de las plataformas de publicidad en línea. Las fuentes de información principales que se han analizado son las vistas en el Congreso de Facebook, Twitter y Google en noviembre de 2017, y las vistas de Mark Zuckerberg en los EE. UU. y en la UE a principios de 2018.
Este artículo describe un proyecto artístico que muestra algunas de las campañas de desinformación más exitosas antes de internet y resalta que la industria de la publicidad en línea se sirve de ellas para prevenir las regulaciones que amenazan su modelo de negocio, incluso si este modelo amenaza la democracia.

Palabras clave
prácticas artísticas; contraculturas digitales; arte y tecnología digitales; estudios culturales; periodismo

Article Details

Cómo citar
de Valk, Marloes. «Recycling old strategies and devices. What remains, an art project addressing disinformation campaigns (re)using strategies to delay industry regulation». Artnodes, n.º 24, pp. 34-43, doi:10.7238/a.v0i24.3290.
Biografía del autor/a

Marloes de Valk, Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam, Países Bajos)

Marloes de Valk (Países Bajos) es una artista del software y escritora que se encuentra en la etapa de posdesesperación y que trata de adaptarse a la amenaza del calentamiento global, así como a ser espiada por todos los aparatos que la rodean. Sorprendida por la obsesiva dedicación con que, incluso después de lo de Snowden, compartimos detalles íntimos sobre nosotros mismos a grupos de personas que a menudo no están especialmente bien definidos, y asombrada por el ruido ensordecedor que generamos cuando socializamos con la tecnología que tenemos alrededor, intenta comprender mejor el porqué.

Ha participado en exposiciones internacionales, imparte talleres y charlas (entre otras, en Transmediale y en Chaos Communication Congress) y ha publicado artículos en software libre y de código abierto por la cultura, el arte y la tecnología libres (entre otros, en Contemporary Music ReviewArchive 2020Pervasive Labour Union Zine y NXS). Es supervisora de tesis en el máster de Edición Experimental en el Piet Zwart Institute y becaria en el V2_Lab for the Unstable Media. Fue miembro del colectivo artístico GOTO10 y ha ayudado a desarrollar el puredyne GNU/Linux distribution y el Make Art Festival. Es editora de Digital Artists’ Handbook y de la publicación FLOSS+Art, aparecida a principios de 2009. Forma parte de la Plutonian Corp, La Société Anonyme y Iodyne dynamics.

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