Peel away one illusion, immediately become subject to another. That is what it means to live in our media-saturated age. Nowhere is this more evident than in the American political arena, especially when it comes to presidential elections, where candidates, under the guidance of supposedly sophisticated media consultants, present public personas crafted to appear both comforting and galvanizing.
I created the animation running above not to debunk Barack Obama's carefully honed public persona; rather, I created it to illustrate how easy it is to tweak that persona in a negative direction. Incidentally, what percentage of the electorate do you think know Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein?
© 2008 Peter Schmideg