You’re a Pawn
for a pawn , for a pawn, for a pawn
So, Who is the king?.
These days I see so much content being poured into my eyes, regarding what is where and who is whom or “Can you believe he/she did that?”. I would say that there is so much distractions going around and I am distracted. I have been wanting to make this NFT since a while now .Chomsky’s media control and Barthes Mythologies definitely gave me a much better understanding, while making this animation come to life. (However controversial Chomsky’s ideas must be in the current times, Some of his older works in 2000's were really good and some are still relevant)
When you talk about the nation or the structure/politics of one’s country . You feel like everybody is a pawn of some one higher. This is a general notion and everybody knows it. It is a series of invisible threads that you cannot see. But In an organization, you see the thread much clearly. You know that you have a manager who reports to a division head, who reports to a VP of that department, who probably reports to a CFO maybe , then the CEO and you know that the CEO is technically a part of the board of directors, the decisions of the board of directors are controlled by the shareholders. Maybe there’s someone higher, but this is as far as I know. But in state or country, you often wonder who is really pulling the strings? The funny thing is even in politics nobody really has any control. You think that they do but they don’t. There is always someone higher pulling the thread.
In Chomsky's media control, many of the patterns observed in 1960’s, 2000’s, are still relevant to even today’s time. He always said that in a democratic nation there are a series of so called intellectuals who control the state affairs while the rest, majority of the people which were referred to as “ the bewildered herd” have nothing to say what so ever, apart from once in a while electing those intellectuals in an election. The intellectuals control the heard through propaganda . A great example of that is today’s media. They are controlled by the government to distract us. Because if we really know what is happening behind the scenes. Then we might start questioning the structure and that’s not good for the intellectuals as Chomsky says it. So here, we are a pawn being manipulated by the media. Because the media tells us what exactly needs to be told to us or if your Instagram or twitter reveals too much then distract us by showing us a crisis that never existed before. Or hire influencers or send a not so famous person (yet has some credibility)to court. (Probably why court cases takes so much time). Show numbers that aren’t real and hide what’s really required.
Most of the media are the pawn of the government, Even in the structure of the government, we see the state government are controlled by the central, the central are controlled by the Prime minister or President (in some countries) and they are controlled by the party they represent. The Party makes decisions based on where the money influx comes from, i.e. the business tycoons. These guys are probably controlled by the major industries of the world like weapons, oil or technology who again are controlled by their shareholders and so on. The list goes on, but we don’t know that. We don’t know the big guns. We think we do but that's all the information that will ever be given to us. They don’t want us to know honestly.
So This brings to my question “Who is the King?” We need to question that in each circumstances or event that we are in. Especially with content in today’s world being thrown at us in every screen like flashes of light, the reality and the virtual have become warped into one. We don’t know what is the truth anymore. This is where the king’s take advantage of us pawns.
These patterns are seen not just now but from World war 1. The act of changing the publics mind through use of propaganda techniques were seen long time ago. It’s not a very crude technique, This has been refined really well over the years by the higher ups who practice it really well. Media is just one of their tools. If the propaganda fails, if the public is aware then distract us with new things. New things to hate or make fun off or use Barthes “Neither — Nor” ism to negate the catastrophe.
(Neither — Nor is a technique used by journalist to reduce the catastrophe by saying something opposite in a given scenario as in to negate the two scenarios itself
Example 1: 20,000 crores was spent on building the international airport but this will give jobs to many laborer's and the economy will prosper. A justification of that large amount of unaccounted money being spent.
Example 2:A gas tragedy occurred, 2000 were dead but the owner has given compensation to all the families who have suffered a loss. Nobody will then question how did the gas leak happen in first place or the owner of the building subjected his workers to a hazardous work environment)
Every event has an invisible string. Lets take Megan Markle interview for example. It was hosted by Orpah Winfrey and above it all was organized by CBS. Oprah Winfrey is a billionaire, her annual turnover is around 200 million Dollars and CBS turn over in a year is around 22 Billion Dollars. People usually say that The crown has the ultimate power but is that really true?. Apparently Megan and Harry were not “paid” for the interview. but in reality Oprah did (around 9 Million Dollars) and so did CBS. CBS had 49.1 million views and they charged advertisers around $325,000 for just 30 seconds of air time. So as far as the money goes. CBS was at the top. Even If Megan or Harry did have issues or not. Or even if the crown suffered a major controversy .The CBS was the king here weren’t they? Maybe there were more on top who knows?
ref: Did Meghan Markle, Prince Harry make money from Oprah interview? — BusinessToday
Anyway All I can say and what Chomsky quoted “Don’t Question what they are showing you, Question what they are not showing you”. Hence the phrase “You are a pawn, for a pawn, for a pawn, for a pawn…”
Deconstructing The NFT
They are few references thrown while making the animation. The buildings here represent the temporary control the king has while making his pawn do the dirty work
These buildings are historic references and they also belong to “the kings” of our current era.
Here black and white refers to back in the past and color refers to now. What happening back then is happening now as well. These are just patterns that we see. We need to learn history because we need to see the patterns. We humans as a species do things that are cyclic in nature.
The Hidden King reveal. The hidden king that we don’t know about takes control and makes the previous one his pawn.
Movie Reference: Cabinet of Dr Caligari
I have chosen a “Cabinet of Dr Caligari” to be the inspiration for this set. The movie was a product of German expressionism. After the world war 1 people rejected structure or sincerity. This movie was born from Dadaism. The sets were deliberately jagged or skewed to show rejection of order. They were deliberately made to look dark and dreary to show the depression after the war .I have used this as an inspiration to show that there was no order to begin with. It’s just a fallacy.
ref: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari movie review (1920) | Roger Ebert
There are other references as well which I have kept some as Easter eggs.
Hope you liked The NFT.
Collector of this piece: BlockMuse
