Prompt: Five Arenas

Politicians depend on fictions as much as facts to communicate and accumulate power with and from their audiences, us citizens. This is how artists become indispensable.

This is about AI, artists, technology and power. It is also about journalism. In other words, I want to examine the fact/fiction world in which we all swim, every day of our lives – even if we would prefer to remain apart to some degree. This post is about us digital citizens.

It will tell you a story which takes place across five arenas in an interconnected sequence of events: the political arena, the artistic arena, the AI technology arena, the journalistic arena and the citizen arena which I sub-divide into the hyper-local and the digital-global.

The citizens who occupy the hyper-local and the digital-global arenas are most probably you and I, and everyone else who are both citizens and audiences. Yet some of us are more at jeopardy than others. In other words, some of us have a lot to lose - up to and including our streets, neighbours, families, and even our lives. What I see in this fact/fiction world may not have the same consequences as it does for you.

The political arena

It starts with the political arena as press conference on 4^th February 2025– a wild, incendiary address by President Trump alongside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu who is presently avoiding his arrest by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. To all intents and purposes Trump confirms in front of the press his intention to break international law and implicitly states his support for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people of Gaza. At one point he says:

I also strongly believe that the Gaza Strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, and especially those who live there, and frankly who’s been really very unlucky. It’s been very unlucky. It’s been an unlucky place for a long time. Being in its presence just has not been good. And it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there.

Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this, and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.

This could be paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth. It could be one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, twelve. It could be numerous sites, or it could be one large site. But the people will be able to live in comfort and peace and we’ll get sure, we’ll make sure something really spectacular is done. They’re going to have peace. They’re not going to be shot at and killed and destroyed like this civilization of wonderful people has had to endure.

The only reason the Palestinians want to go back to Gaza is they have no alternative. It’s right now a demolition site. This is just a demolition site. Virtually every building is down. They’re living under fallen concrete that’s very dangerous and very precarious.

They instead can occupy all of a beautiful area with homes and safety, and they can live out their lives in peace and harmony, instead of having to go back and do it again.

The US will take over the Gaza Strip and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. Level it out. Create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. Do a real job. Do something different. Just can’t go back. If you go back, it’s going to end up the same way it has for a hundred years.

I’m hopeful that this ceasefire could be the beginning of a larger and more enduring peace that will end the bloodshed and killing once and for all. With the same goal in mind, my administration has been moving quickly to restore trust in the alliance and rebuild American strength throughout the region, and we’ve really done that. We’re a respected nation again. A lot’s happened in the last couple of weeks. We are actually a very respected nation again.

He makes no reference to the various international laws which these proposed actions would infringe. Nor does he acknowledge the existence of multiple UN resolutions relating to the affairs in Israel and Palestine. He makes no reference to the authorities on the ground who are responsible for overseeing the human rights of the citizens under its jurisdiction. A few minutes later, in an answer Trump gives to the press core he says:

And they'll live there. Palestinians also. Palestinians will live there, many people will live there. But they've tried the other and they've tried it for decades and decades and decades. It's not going to work. It didn't work. It will never work. And you have to learn from history. History has - you know, you just can't let it keep repeating itself.

We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so - this could be so magnificent. But more importantly than that is the people that have been absolutely destroyed that live there now can live in peace in a much better situation because they are living in hell. And those people will now be able to live in peace. We'll make sure that it's done world class.

It will be wonderful for the people. Palestinians, Palestinians mostly we're talking about. And I have a feeling that despite them saying no, I have a feeling that the king in Jordan and that the general president [Sisi] - but that the general in Egypt will open their hearts and will give us the kind of land that we need to get this done, and people can live in harmony and in peace.

Thank you all, very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Over the next few seconds these remarks by Trump are digitally transmitted around the whole planet, are heard by politicians and leaders in every country, citizens in every city, by journalists, and even by artists and AI content makers. In almost every leadership and political quarter the message from Trump causes a unanimous negative global rejection.

The AI technology arena

Information moves instantaneously. The planet has no dark, off-line corners. These days even a killing zone is sustained as a killing zone by digital means. Such a state of digital penetration is achieved through digital coding, computers, internet, and satellite systems, with journalists and content makers providing digital fodder 24 hours a day. But now we need to consider an additional technology, computer generated Artificial Intelligence.

On the 26^th of February 2025 an AI generated video smashes into our brains and settles in our memory systems rather like a bomb wedging into a concrete apartment block. Lasting only 32 seconds, the video is shared by US President Trump on his own social media platform, Truth Social, and Instagram. Like billions of others across the planet I see the video within an hour of its ‘publication’. I am convinced that you saw it too. Would you be reading this post otherwise? I won’t describe it frame by frame. That is available elsewhere.

I immediately search for the source of this video. Who has made it? With what technology? What has been their intention? I have other questions looking for answers too. How had Trump come across it? Did he commission it? Why had he decided to press ‘share’?

For some days I kept asking Google Search the same question – ‘who made the Trump Gaza AI video?’. No answer came back to me, rather only news feeds of the video itself. Maybe my location was restricting the results being delivered to me. I asked others to ask the same question. Then things changed.