e-flux Journal #147

In this issue of e-flux journal, Trevor Paglen begins his three-part essay on how US military psychological warfare techniques were a historical predecessor to today’s AI-driven social media trained to identify emotions and exploit affects. Telling the story of Richard Doty, a counterintelligence officer who deliberately spread disinformation about extraterrestrials as cover for military operations, Paglen identifies a key tenet of the US Army Field Manual: it is easier to deceive someone by reinforcing their preexisting beliefs than to change those beliefs. Behind the outlandish but well-documented example of UFO sightings lies a chilling warning that the creation of an entirely new reality is accomplished not through coercion but through the tactical use of affirmative encouragement. Editorial Editors Society of the Psyop, Part 1: UFOs and the Future of Media Trevor Paglen Planetarization and Heimatlosigkeit, Part 1 Yuk Hui Agrarian Economies and Indigenous Textiles: The Feminization of Land Struggles María Iñigo Clavo Empire’s Island, or, Who Is the Island? Jonas Staal On Paralysis, Part 3 Evan Calder Williams Unworldliness: A Pathology of Humankind (On Günther Anders’s Negative Anthropology) Hunter Bolin Stemming the Tide of STEM Luis Camnitzer

Editors: Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle

Contributors: Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, Anton Vidokle, Trevor Paglen, Yuk Hui, María Iñigo Clavo, Jonas Staal, Evan Calder Williams, Hunter Bolin, Luis Camnitzer