How do you build a conspiracy theory?

Degree Project

Forme di complotto

Maria Calzolari

Student
Maria Calzolari

Conspiracy theories aim at shaping other versions of the world in order to escape from the “official” one – the world created by standard information and news. The main paradox is that these theories, once secretly shared by an exclusive group, are nowadays spread through media that are also used to broadcast conventional narratives. Conspiracy theories are not mysterious secrets anymore. Instead, they are exposed for everyone to see.
The motivation of my research has been to discover which kind of new shape conspiracy theories have taken on nowadays through popular and mainstream culture.
The final project is proposed as a representation of the structure of these theories in a tangible way in the form of a set of diagrams which are then developed and communicated through a game. By attributing a code (colour, shape, dimension) to each element of the composition, the aim is to disassemble and reconstruct them, and vice versa. Moreover, the project seeks to underline that conspiracy theories belong to our world of communication: still ambiguous and built by human beings.