Presumably Based on a True Story: Artistic Responses to The Trend of Truth (2014) (ABSTRACT) Something is happening right now, in our contemporary moment – a trend towards truth.* Clearly, this is not a new trend – to think about the ‘true story’ and its potential and use within our cultural productions. Within the last 20-30 years, the trend has been steadily growing; it is even being suggested as a movement (Black, 2002; Shields, 2010). This text utilizes artistic responses to the emergent ‘trend of truth’ as a means of exposing and exploring underlying motivations and potential ramifications of the wider trend; they will be considered from a psychosocial perspective. The primary focus will be placed on two projects which act in response to the trend of truth: the recent Fakebook by Dave Cicirelli (2013) and Lindsay Seers’ body of work, It has to be this way (2009-2010). Following the discussions of the works themselves, I will attempt to begin to articulate their significance and the distinctive implications and questions that they expose about the wider trend of truth. After a general introduction and brief consideration of the history of ideas which might shed light on the complicated relationship to truth within this trend (Benjamin, 1936/2006; Lyotard, 1979/1984; Nietzsche, 1886/2003), this text then considers artistic reactions to the trend of truth, and finally returns to the larger trend to consider its possible broader implications. With a primary theoretical underpinning of Berlant’s (2011) notion of ‘cruel optimism’, this project makes use of an eclectic range of theorists to explore the artistic responses to the trend of truth as well as the wider trend itself (Barthes, 1980/2010; Batchen, 1996/2002; Freud, 1923; Lacan, 1949/1977). ___________ *This project does not attempt to answer the question ‘What is truth?’ but instead it considers the motivations and potential underlying meaning of the term ‘truth’ within the context of recent cultural productions (i.e. the assumed priority of ‘based on a true story’). |
|||