The Sprawl
Created by award-winning Dutch artists Metahaven, The Sprawl argues that the internet has become a disruptive geopolitical super weapon.
In the installation, multiple screens present re-imagined, popular YouTube memes, including state-influenced fan art and news clips, juxtaposed and overlaid with original footage and graphics created by Metahaven – revealing how the West and Russia are using the same technology and cinematic aesthetics to present contrasting versions of the truth, whilst themselves creating a potent work of propaganda about propaganda, a paranoid trip into reality turned on its head.
Together with master cinematographer Remko Schnorr and acclaimed electronic musician Kuedo, Metahaven have created a playful, provocative and strikingly poetic work. In 2013 Metahaven won the Cobra Art Prize and was named Design Studio of the Year by ICON magazine.
As well as being presented as an immersive video installation, The Sprawl is being disseminated as two further, interwoven parts: a feature-length documentary, premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (see the trailer above), and as stand-alone fragments on sprawl.space.
