The Art of Manipulation: How It Shapes Our Perception

Welcome to the “Museum of Manipulative Art.”

No, self-guided tours are not allowed (no one is immune to a shaken consciousness). In our halls, you’ll find art that didn’t come into existence “just because.” We aim to shield you from the direct impact of the author’s intent.

We are in the deep Paleolithic era. Tens of thousands of years separate us from those times. Brushes and paints would be invented much later, but creativity doesn’t require them. Prehistoric humans didn’t start creating art simply to fill the quiet moments between hunting and fishing.

What lies behind this prehistoric art?

Compelling reasons. Among them — to immortalize a personal feat so that the tribe would remember and follow the example. A small indentation in the cave wall was enough to produce a masterpiece.

Before us is a symbolic depiction of a wound, perhaps sustained by the artist during an uneven battle with a mammoth. For the artist and the viewer, such creativity was much more than just a cozy snapshot in an album. It resembles a propaganda poster for primitive hunters.

Take a look at the Neanderthal-designed burial stone slab. Each scratch made by the artist carries a sacred meaning. Scientists are still speculating on what exactly those carefully carved cup-marks signify.

Has the manipulative effect of prehistoric art truly faded over the millennia?

The shelf life of prehistoric art seems far from expired. Sacred awe continues to envelop modern viewers. We bear witness to a pivotal moment in human development: a prehistoric artist, with clumsy strokes, begins to sketch the rough draft of humanity’s worldview.

What matters is that the created image is not a mirror reproduction of reality, but one imbued with meanings deliberately introduced by the Master. There’s no defense against the power of these cave influencers: as pioneers of a new kind of activity, they create an unparalleled art product for mass consumption.

Using art as a reliable tool to achieve goals quickly became second nature for humanity. The efficiency increased as the arsenal of techniques expanded. The Muse often didn’t appear out of the blue but was summoned with a purpose:

She helped strengthen faith, inspiring temple frescoes and the creation of religious music.

She supported the authority of the powerful, suggesting catchy slogans for propaganda posters and visualizing cults of personality through monumental art.

She waved the colorful flag of Fauvism in front of supporters of the classical palette.

The co-dependent relationship between art and faith was born in Ancient Egypt. Artists, with the zeal of disciplined officials, carried out their mission — to serve as a link between the divine and the human. Masters studied the strict canons of art creation in cities closed off from prying eyes. There was no room for improvisation or originality in such works. Color, theme, form, size — the artist, in modern terms, always worked “strictly according to instructions.” These stencil-like masterpieces were designed to establish a religious framework that held the entire civilization together. The artist was merely a “cog” in the mechanism ensuring the pantheon of Egyptian gods endured.

Art, in tandem with the state, worked on shaping the worldview of the ordinary citizen under totalitarian regimes. The same “Ancient Egyptian” model applied — canonizing the creative process of the artist as a “cog in the system.” In the Soviet Union, the officially recognized artistic method of socialist realism was developed at the highest state level. The task of “ideological re-education” of the common person to fit the regime’s needs was a top priority. Creative freedom was closely monitored. Deviations from the course were swiftly curtailed.

Artistic manipulations proved successful. The viewer was indeed ideologically transformed. So much so that even minor forms of art were mass-produced — Soviet citizens eagerly adorned their interiors with porcelain sculptures depicting achievements in national sports, ballet, and space exploration. Many of you still can’t look away from the pointing finger of one of our marble historical leaders. Monumental sculptures in the spirit of socialist realism were powerful tools of ideological propaganda. The emphasis was placed on visual and figurative thinking — deliberately so. Logic goes silent at the sight of the folds in the leader’s robe, each one as large as the viewer. The goal was achieved.

The same canons and the ambition to influence the minds of the masses are subtly present in the works of artists who wield their brushes against their peers. Yes, there exists such a snake that endlessly bites its own tail — it is called Art. The manifesto of every movement opposing “granny-classics” boils down to this: build a new artistic world by completely dismantling the familiar old one.

Take Fauvism, for instance. It dared to challenge the sacred — chiaroscuro, linear perspective, and volume. It wrested the palette from the Master’s hands. Why bother with the subtleties of tone transitions when paint squeezed straight from the tube conveys the colors of emotions more vividly?

Eras, Genres, Styles, Names – Everything Has Merged in This Hall

Yes, it’s true. But this multifaceted art space is essentially a ring where the battle between Artist and Viewer unfolds — a “human vs. human” level confrontation. Theoretically, both opponents are equally matched. To believe or not, to obey or rebel, to agree or argue — the Viewer has the power to resist attempts to reshape their consciousness.

In some cases, the fight ends rather quickly with Art, pursuing manipulative goals, being knocked out. The audience consigns to oblivion (at best) art objects created deliberately to address fleetingly important issues. Authentic manuscripts, as we know, do not burn. Those made “to order,” however, do.

The visual effect of colors nonexistent in nature worked well only as a sensational news hook — nothing more. The rebellious attempt at a colorful art revolution failed to resonate with the masses.

Outstanding examples of monumental sculpture are regularly toppled in the “monument wars,” a mirror reflection of ideological battles. Alongside the demand for creative freedom, there grows a demand for freedom of perception.

Has the manipulative effect worn off over the centuries?

Do you see the layer of dust on our exhibits? That’s right — “the people’s path has grown over.” The exhibits no longer hold the same power over us.

“To all the bold and young at heart, take up the book, the sickle, and the hammer.”

Do you feel a surge of energy and a call to action? No? Today, a slogan on a porcelain plate is unlikely to move anyone off the couch. But it used to work — and how well it worked.

These days, a broad stroke of the brush is no longer enough to get someone to share your values. For that, there are special technologies — and they’re growing in number. Manipulative art objects created using such technologies are showcased in the next hall.

The Monotonous Monologue of the Tour Guide, Interrupted by the Mini-Reactions of a Submissive Audience — A Format That Has Always Suited Everyone, Right?

Forget about it immediately! In this hall, the zone of museum comfort ends. Move along, move along — don’t cling to the rails!

Technological art forms have yet to be fully polished by the reflections of art critics. Your familiar friend Alice won’t help you uncover the essence here. You’ll have to spend some time as a test subject yourself.

Four years, like Fauvism? Half a century, like Socialist Realism? Or perhaps the screen’s glow is the end of the tunnel, emerging from which humanity will lose its ability to create independently?

Here, everything is different. Different from before. Or as it should be? This question demands an answer in real-time, before the program-creator answers for us and forces us to accept its answer as the only possible one. By the way, this has already happened — back in the depths of the Paleolithic.

What is that strange person with four arms doing? Well, that is the exhibit itself. “Self-Portrait of a Scientist Who Grew a Pair of Extra Arms on His Back.” Why does he need them? Certainly not to re-paper the kitchen walls.

Look at how uncomfortable the artist feels in the skin of an octopus! These arms were grown specifically for you. To ensure that a reset of our relationship with our bodies and all living things begins here and now.

Bio-art unpacks and warms up scientific knowledge for the layperson, bringing it to a “ready-to-consume” state. A bronze sculpture of a centaur cannot compare in impact to the repulsive, physical effect of a bio-art performance.

A laboratory instead of a studio, bacteria and DNA instead of paints, AI and technology instead of brushes, shocking experimental installations and performances instead of static paintings — bio-art lives its own life and one that isn’t its own.

Feeling Déjà Vu? The Ghost of a Pharaoh’s Mummy From the Adjacent Hall Still Haunts Your Mind’s Eye?

The comparison is fitting. Yes, the mummification of bodies in Ancient Egypt can be seen as a precursor to bio-art. Only now, access to the body and its secrets is no longer limited to a narrow circle of priests.

Where are we heading? Here’s your signpost.

Open to all Alices (Carrollian ones this time) in search of their own Wonderland. Touch the art objects — they’re just waiting for it. Be ready for their response. The hand that emerges from the frame to snatch your smartphone? That’s no hallucination. Although… Phygital art is all about this — blurring the boundaries between digital and real spaces. It’s about how limitless the world of virtual possibilities can be.

Don’t wander off! The exhibits here are infinite. They self-replicate, often uncontrollably. They do as they please. A program malfunction? Maybe. Or perhaps someone in the control room lent a helping hand.

Representatives of this movement position themselves as warriors against digital culture, armed with the homeopathic weapon of “like cures like.” After all, technological art is not without its serpentine tendencies.

Welcome to our literary lounge. Dedicated to all lovers of chaotic reading. If I may, here’s a quote from one of this hall’s “masterpieces”:

“Technology destroys business, eliminates jobs, will destroy humanity”

Déjà vu again? Yes, that’s right. The method of seamlessly weaving words into poetry, quite literally cut out from newspaper articles, was employed by Dadaists who championed anti-art and meaningful nonsense on a global scale. Historically speaking, it wasn’t all that long ago — in the early 20th century. And yet, we still quote good old Shakespeare. The mission of Dadaism turned out to be impossible. Does its remake, Flarf, stand a chance?

By the way, they’re doing quite well. It seems that humanity has “matured” for the emergence of new idols. The material — as a form of existence we are so accustomed to — no longer stirs minds. Even immortalizing guiding ideas in stone doesn’t work anymore: ancient Egyptian tombs have suffered greatly at the hands of looters, and the legendary Notre-Dame de Paris burned in flames.

This was the good news. There’s also another. The outcome of the ongoing battle between the viewer and manipulative art is unpredictable. In the worst-case scenario, we will turn into a “clicking” internet mass (not shouting in different voices as we do now), coded to serve the goals of the very technologies’ development.

In fact, all technological art objects resemble openings in a cave. The first steps technologies take, relying on the artist-co-author to navigate social space, chip away at our consciousness. Will it go further? Not necessarily, if in this new dimension of manipulative art, things are arranged differently.

Will we make the journey from the zero point to a virtual Renaissance, or will we fall behind the Master on the way, to go our own path? Are technological art movements aimed at expanding the circle of the initiated, or on the contrary, narrowing it to a safe, elitist minimum?

Ancient Egyptian pharaohs combined the divine and reality in manipulative art. Socialist realism saturated reality with ideology in all forms of creativity. Today, in the art cocktail that we are served at every corner, alongside reality, we intuitively sense technology. The degree of manipulation increases as the proportions change.

No, the plaque hasn’t fallen off. It doesn’t yet exist, just as the forms of art that will be created by the Don Quixotes of our time “not just for the sake of it” to fight the fickle attitude towards technology, life, and ourselves, don’t exist either.