[Fis] Fwd: Re: Brenner 2020 New Year Lecture

[Dai Griffiths]

On 07/01/2020 12:42, Pedro C. Marijuán wrote:

> Finally disinformation has IMO a peculiar form/structure, somehow 
> different. It fits too well with some preconceived "partisan" views, 
> it is addressed to raise visceral reactions, it contains no 
> contrasting or balancing elements, it has no evident/credible 
> "institutional" reference. It is a fake!
I suspect that disinformation may be more pervasive than you suggest.

Sitting in Mallorca airport as I type, most of the graphic and 
linguistic material that I can see seems to me to have some kind of 
disinformative character. The sign at the bar appears to be a personal 
message, but is actually from a marketing department. The coffee offers 
me a 'real Italian coffee experience', whatever that may be. The water 
bottles want to convince me that their contents are distinguishable. The 
corporation that runs the pastry store wants to tell me that it is a 
family business estabilshed in 1854 rather than a purchased brand.

Perhaps it is the informative interactions which are somehow different?

More generally I wonder if disinformation is not at the heart of 
artistic expression. A Rembrandt portrait convinces us that we are 
looking at a person, even when we know that we are looking at the 
astonishing manipulation of paint.  More generally, a metaphor sees one 
thing in terms of another. But the mapping is not complete or exact. To 
the degree that arrows cannot be constructed of desire (the William 
Blake exhibition is fresh in my memory), and nor could Princess Diana 
have been mistaken for an English Rose, is the metaphor itself a mix of 
information and disinformation? How could we calibrate or describe such 
a mix?

Best

Dai