Post truth and public art were the two keywords my research began on. I even identified a research question in the previous blog post. I just finished reading Lee McIntyre’s book and it cemented the fact that the post-truth era is intriguing and very pertinent, and definitely something I want to include into my research.
So here’s the title and abstract I have so far, bear in mind that this abstract is the pre-completion abstract and will probably become more succinct once my paper is complete:
Public Art in the Post-Truth Era
A commentary on social media through the prism of Lee McIntyre’s book ‘Post-Truth’ as well as the allegories in George Orwell’s ‘1984’.
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to comment on the impact of the post truth era on art in the public sphere by drawing parallels between the nature of social media and the allegorical world of George Orwell’s ‘1984’. It will begin by discussing the origin and concept of the post-truth era and the characteristics that define it. By citing experiments and prior events that have shaped the notion of ‘post-truth’ it will explore the relevance and connection between the onset of social media and the explosion of the post truth phenomenon. A comparison will then be drawn, highlighting aspects of major social media art platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, that mirror the dystopian writings of George Orwell. Drawing briefly from other researches and theories such as the Dada Manifesto, Debord’s “Comments on the Society of the Spectacle” and Foucault’s theory of postmodernism among others, it will critically analyze the impact of this post truth era on shaping thought and behavior. Ultimately, this paper will attempt to address whether anything be done in the face of a brazen and widespread disregard for the truth. More importantly, it will consider whether art can be a tool to rekindle critical and intelligent thought and dismantle the post-truth world.
Here are also some other journals, links and theories that I am delving into as I write the paper. Noting them down here to keep the final pieces of my research cohesively in one place:
- 1984, George Orwell (downloaded onto my kindle, reading for the second time atm, in order to critically connect it to my research)
- https://www.furtherfield.org/radical-noise-dada-tactics-in-a-post-truth-world/
- https://ralphkeyes.com/book/the-post-truth-era/
- https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-snapchat-and-the-dawn-of-the-post-truth-era/
- https://www.widewalls.ch/post-truth/
- https://therapeia.org.uk/ttr/2015/03/29/digimodernism-social-media-and-the-apparently-real/
- http://www.thescavenger.net/media-a-technology-sp-9915/61-mediatech2/73-postmodernism-is-out-digimodernism-is-in.html
- http://hanapusa.com/text/critic/posttruth.html
- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/arts/wolfgang-tillmans-fake-news.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jun/12/aids.chrismcgreal
- https://qz.com/1361505/a-philosopher-of-truth-says-were-not-living-in-a-post-truth-world-after-all/
- https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/visual-arts/art-in-the-instagram-age-how-social-media-is-shaping-art-and-how-you-experience-it/
- https://medium.com/the-mission/the-reason-social-media-will-soon-be-an-art-form-35742a32bcf2
- https://www.sasahblog.com/digimodernism-in-social-media/
- Dada Manifesto
- On Bullshit — frankfurt harry
- Post-truth — Lee McIntyre
- Otaku — Hiroki Azuma
- Comments on the society of the spectacle — Debord
- Politics and the english language — george Orwell
- How the arts impacts communities — Joshua Geutzkow
- The Gift — Lewis Hyde