Here is my propaganda poster supporting The Machine’s and Central Committee’s perspective from The Machine Stops. I used Source Filmmaker to develop this propaganda poster.

The Central Comittee values your precious time. Devote it to The Machine

Bless The Machine and the Machine will bless you, your friends, and your neighbors. Resist, and your world will desist you.

Imagine a hand comprised of bolts and screws reaching out to you, offering a life of peace and purpose. But understand that the hand that will feed and serve you, will ultimately kill you. It will give your life a purpose, but that purpose is for nothing but The Machine’s lifespan. I want to encapsulate this in the poster’s visuals: the paradoxical oppressors offering you comfort, who could “work without [you], and if it could, let you die.” (Forster 15) The Machine and Central Committee are to be feared, which is why I implemented the threat, “Your world will desist you.” Punishments from the faceless Central Committee like “refusing” requests “to be a father” and homelessness are sentenced to those who oppose. (Forster 12) The Machine and don’t reject first-hand ideas. Fear won’t bring praise, and so to include appealing to authority/deification devices, I implemented words referencing religion like blessings, and saint-like symbols like hands reaching out from the light as if “God had made the machine.” (Forster 2) Finally, I implemented bandwagoning, including The Machine’s chairs occupied by citizens, as well as including the reader’s family and neighbors. Alluding to the wide positive use of the Machine.  Citizens exclaim that the Machine “feeds us and clothes us and houses us; through it, we speak to one another, we see one another, in it we have our being… the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine.” (Forster 19) The creation of this poster involved my critical and creative thinking, by using my creative abilities to create slogans and visual devices, while critically thinking to connect them to plots and themes of the book. Ultimately, this poster is more reminiscent of propaganda that would exist if the Machine existed today, drawing from modern fonts and realistic art. But let it be known The Machine does exist in our world. In our pockets, on our wrists, and desks. The same smart devices that give us joy are the same devices, run by committees that thrive on letting you drown in ecstasy born from their products, and reduce you to a consumer.

Here is a podcast done by Nathan and I titled Tales Unfolded covering the Machine Stops and Wall-E’s importance in today’s society.