Stóri Bróðir Leikstýrir
Read time:
2-3 min
Client:
Iceland University of the Arts
Industry:
politics & media
Start:
End:
Duration:
3 days
Stóri Bróðir Leikstýrir is a zine produced as part of a school project at the Iceland University of the Arts. It explores the relationship between mass media, political spectacle, and the illusion of democratic participation — drawing on the critical theories of Guy Debord and Noam Chomsky.
The project was produced in Icelandic and uses the 2024 U.S. presidential election as its central case study — not because of the election itself, but because of what it reveals about how power operates through media.
Concept
Debord argued that modern society had replaced direct experience with its representation — a world of images, symbols, and narratives that mediate reality rather than reflect it. Chomsky extended this further, describing how mainstream media functions not as a neutral reporter of events but as a mechanism for manufacturing consent — shaping what the public believes, fears, and desires.
The zine takes these ideas and applies them to a concrete moment: a voter in 2024, absorbing coverage of Trump versus Harris across left and right-leaning media. The argument is that despite the appearance of choice — of weighing candidates, following debates, casting a ballot — the voter is not a free agent. They are a participant in a spectacle, their emotions and allegiances managed from above by the same economic and political forces that fund both sides of the stage.
The visual language makes this explicit. Marionette strings descend from a controlling hand to a television set on the front, and to the silhouettes of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris on the back — the candidates themselves as puppets, directed by the same forces they claim to oppose. The ballot box is not a democratic instrument but a theatre — an actor performing on a stage, the election itself a scripted production with a predetermined outcome. The cover names it directly: Stóri Bróðir Leikstýrir — Big Brother Directs.
