Authentic Falsification

From Konrad Becker's Strategic Reality Dictionary: Deep Infopolitics and Cultural Intelligence

The technological ability to make copies that are indistinguishable from, or even better than, the original undermined the distinction between the counterfeit and the real. A piano player could never have dreamed of ever playing a work exactly the same way twice. The digital changed the concept of authenticity. News sources report that the global counterfeit business of branded commoditites has spun out of control. But imitation was already an issue when innumerable fake Greek statues turned up in ancient Rome. It was common practice in ancient times for an anonymous author to write in the name of someone famous. Pseudepigraphical work veils the identity of authors writing in the name of a real or fictitious person. Cryptomnesia is the name for lost or forgotten, suppresed or erased memories. It refers to works where authors believe that they are exploring or discovering something new, but are actually recalling a similar or identical work previously encountered. Recalling to the mind experiences to which they would not have access otherwise, and experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration. Previously the word "forgery" simply meant "to make," as in the blacksmith's hearth. Since theoretically a forgery could be an even more important work of art, it raises questions in regard to value: it seems that forgery is not so much about content, but authorship. Some art forgers have become popular figures and in the view of many, the only real damage done is creaming off the bank accounts of the wealthy. More often than not the counterfeit of high-culture currency is a source of popular amusement. If it is not worth forging, it is not worth having. But forgery is not seen as a "victimless crime" by the gatekeepers of culture, since it might alter official authorized history, collective identity. Tied to the secularization of society and the emerging cult of beauty in bourgeois social order, the sacred aura of the uniquely "beautiful" image is mirrored in the secular religions characteristic of totalitarian regimes. The subtle distortion of reality and the corruption of ideas that are introduced through the skillful subterfuge of the fake have been compared to the danger of undetected aliens living among us. Not just another false posture of insurrection where population segments are efficiently kept in line by irrational cults of illusory rebellion dancing before the monuments of power. An uncontrollable invasion of alien doubles subtly infiltrates and alters cultural codes.


Brian Holmes introduction to Strategic Reality Dictionary: Deep Infopolitics and Cultural Intelligence

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online text: Tactical Reality Dictionary: Cultural Intelligence and Social Control