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Definition
agitprop, political strategy in which the techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence and mobilize public opinion. Although the strategy is common, both the label and an obsession with it were specific to the Marxism practiced by communists in the Soviet Union. https://www.britannica.com/topic/agitprop
But we live in the failure of socialism and the oppression caused by the Soviet Union, so what could agitprop look like in contemporary capitalism?
This is 6&'s first task to investigate. Maybe it is positive and aspirational, maybe it is an ironic critique of propaganda.
Practice
Follow the method of agitprop artist, Gustav Klutsis:
A photomontage is a complex of elements organized according to a specific method, the so-called montage method. These elements are:
- the political slogan — a quotation, a caption, etc.:
- the photograph of some social act or event as the pictorial element (including documentary photographs);
- color for activation;
- graphic elements;
- the planar and perspectival design for the synthetic execution of photomontage and graphic representation.
The method of photomontage is divided into two organically related processes:
- preparation of the individual elements (the photomechanical processes);
- the process of montage itself (combination and organization of the elements).
To ensure the utmost activation of the materials photomontage employs the following principles for the organization of its materials (montage):
- use of different scales (with the aim of heightening the impact of the work and replacing the traditional and restrictive use of perspective) which itself offers very significant compositional possibilities;
- use of highly contrasting colors and forms;
- activation through liberated placement of elements (cutting them out from the passive background and actively coloring them; employing extreme contrasts of chromatic and achromatic color).
The production of a poster proceeds in the following sequence of steps:
- IzoGIZ commission;
- development of the theme (the content of the poster);
- development of the overall structure (construction of the poster);
- taking the relevant photographs in the factories and plants;
- process of montage (organization).
The principal task as far as organization of the materials is concerned is to manifest the class significance of the issue (the significance of the political slogan involved). One of the great merits of photomontage is precisely the way in which it has facilitated a new method for producing essentially militant posters. It is a characteristic feature of the latter that the poster surface is articulated and defined by the political content of the presented materials rather than by aesthetic principles. The old system for the composition of posters, based on the aesthetic principle, must be liquidated (by eliminating the framing border within the poster). The new principle is based upon the combination (montage) of topical materials (political slogans, documentary photographs, quotations, color, graphic elements, etc.) that present a consistent political line and take account of the concrete position of the viewer precisely in order to achieve the maximum expressive impact, political clarity and effective influence. This is the reason for the political significance and formal specificity of this principle. This also clarifies the fundamental difference between photomontage on the one hand, as a synthetic art that presents a number of essentially interdependent elements, and photography as a technical category on the other.
The photograph fixes a static moment, an isolated shot. Photomontage visualizes the dialectical unfolding of a theme of the given subject, the dialectical unity between political slogan and representation. Photography and the photograph are technical means for creating a representational form, they constitute documentary material but they are not ends in themselves.
References
https://thecharnelhouse.org/2016/10/12/gustav-klutsis-revolutionary-propagandist-1895-1938/