Preface
“Propaganda is the activity of disseminating ideas and information with the aim of inducing specific attitudes and actions; the conscious, methodical and planned use of persuasion techniques to achieve specific objectives aimed at benefiting those who organize the process.”
-Wikipedia
In our past and present and while planning our future, those in power manipulate and transform the truth and our culture to shape it to their own interests. Culture means acquiring ideas, information and knowledge from sources that are deemed credible that are entrusted with the task of helping us in our constant search for the truth.
Quid est veritas? What is truth? The question posed by Pontious Pilot (Gospel of John 18:38 in the New Testament), during his interrogation of Jesus, is still pertinent in our time.
Today we live in a world where ideas and information excel, actually we are witnessing an explosion of information without precedence in our history, and yet we have never been as worried about being far from the truth.
Today “post-truth” or “alternative facts” are the words that capture the spirit of the times we are living in. The question concerns the entire universe of information: old, new, traditional and digital. There is fake news, lies, mystification, and the manipulation of the present, past and future truth. We are witnessing a multiplier effect of these phenomena and a very casual use of new digital tools that have increased the effectiveness and firepower of its manipulation.
Today truth is “the most shared point of view” and its opposite, if equally shared, is still truth. All of us are connoisseurs of the truth about everything; all of us have become journalists, journalists have the function of users-readers-scribes who magnify the voices through infinite channels: internet, social networks, blogs, text messages, twitter, etc…
Today the truth does not exist. Today the truth exists. Today the truth does not exist. Today the truth exists together with its opposite as opposed to its opposite and so on to infinity and all are truths without fear of denial … and the denial, if it came, would in turn be truth.
The installation “The game of truth” is made of three spheres of three different diameters, each of which is composed of two identical faces in an inverted position relative to each other.
The largest sphere is formed by two Western faces, the intermediate sphere by two Asian faces, and the small sphere by two African faces. Each sphere has an upright face and one that is inverted. Every sphere rotates on its axis. By making the three spheres rotate we see a face and its opposite and its opposite and its opposite infinitely… and “every face is the true one, every face is truth”.
The choice of the ethnicities of the faces and their different sizes represent who, in this moment, controls the power and the truth. Therefore the large sphere has (for how much longer?) the Western faces, but the Asian ones are “pushing at the door” and therefore before long our own truth will be in Asia’s hands, then in the Africa’s hands and so on, like riding an apocalypse carousel.
Another aspect that inspired this installation was the mythological figure of Giano Bifronte. Because just like Giano had two faces, that of a youth always looking toward the future and that of an elderly person looking toward the past, also the truth tied to power always looks toward the past and tells us what the future will bring but never speaks of the present. The present, for truth shaped by power, doesn’t exist. The present for us doesn’t have truth.
Private Park – Modena 2019
