Official style guide of the Eureka Initiative
Content made by and/or for the Eureka Initiative should try and stick to a particular aesthetic.
Why is this? – We believe that having a distinct style that sets ourselves apart from ‘mainstream’ politics and conveys the feeling of a new form of politics is necessary. This has been the approach of historical revolutionary movements (see early Soviet Constructivism or Socialist Realism). A lot of modern day political groups tend to use the most generic and inoffensive stylisation possible and this makes it a lot more difficult for them to break out of the mould of liberalism. Generic stock images of protests, tired cliched phrases copied from ’60s protest movements and so on. This lacks any sense of vitality or energy and does not push very hard against the boundaries of ‘acceptable’ political thought. Recognising this is rather tabboo amongst leftists, who have convinced themselves that the style of a message does not matter and that only its material content does (and that caring about aesthetics is ‘shallow’ as a result).
COLOUR SCHEME
Our official colour scheme is black with red highlights. We prefer to have these colours mesh together rather than stand harshly apart, with gradients and various shades of dark red. In particular, we prefer earthy-brown shades of red that lean more towards yellow than blue on the colour wheel.
We’ve chosen this colour scheme for a few reasons. First of all, Red is the traditional colour of Socialism. Secondly, we believe these colours represent Australia. The flag of Aboriginal Australians uses a similar earthy red with black, and reddish-brown colour schemes derived from Ochre paint are present in Indigenous art styles. It also works well with our ‘dark’ industrial theme.
THEMES
We wish to cultivate a militant, industrial, futuristic aesthetic. The purpose of this is to set Socialism apart as a radical change from liberalism, and as such our art is intentionally ‘raw’ and provocative to distinguish itself and push the boundaries of political imagination. We intentionally use ‘dark’ themes, leaning into technological-horror, to convey the increasing barbarity and inhumanity of modernity. Note that we are not anti-technology, our own side is also portrayed as futuristic and industrial – it is simply a matter of for what purpose science is used for, and for who.
Why do we use this technological-horror aesthetic to sometimes portray our own position? Simply put, appearing ‘cool’ is more effective than appearing ‘good’. Everyone already thinks their position is correct and that they are in the moral right, telling others that you believe that has no effect. There is also a critical difference between the portrayal of the ‘cool’ anti-heroic side which we identify with our own position and the overtly villainous side we are opposing in our propaganda. When we are attacking something, we portray is as an abomination with no sense of humanity; this is intentional as to avoid the error of assigning blame to individual ‘bad’ people, rather attacking systems as a whole. If we caricature a certain politician, their face will be a mask on some greater monster, a half-formed shape emerging from an ooze or a puppet in front of something far more grotesque. These ‘abominations’ should not show emotion on their own and should be intentionally inscrutable and ‘cold’.
On the other hand, when representing our own position, it will always be as a ‘character’ rather than as an ‘abomination’. Our ‘evil cyborg’ mascot for instance shows emotion and intent in its design, it is screaming with rage and waving a flag. Effectively, while we may portray our own cause as ‘evil-looking’, it will always be warm, whereas the opposing force will be a far more sinister cold evil. The revolutionary position is not soft, it is the authoritarian reconstruction of society to establish a proletarian dictatorship. Attempting to sanitise this only opens up room for accusations of hypocrisy and dilutes the message. We do not attempt to make the revolutionary position cute (we particularly despise attempts to make Communism ‘quirky’, a very common strategy amongst the left today) – revolution is brutal, but at its core is a human response to an utterly inhuman system.
TARGET AUDIENCE
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to political aesthetic. A self-sustaining mass party which is a legitimate political force would probably not be as overtly aggressive as we are in our stylisation. However, there is no self-sustaining mass party in Australia. Our aesthetic is not designed to be appealing to everyone, it is specifically for the purpose of appealing to disillusioned young people who would form the core of a future revolutionary movement.
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