Post Truth and Beauty, 2017

In collaboration with Tim Murray-Browne

Commissioned by Morley College on the occasion of the Engine Room Exhibition in 2017

Medium: Aluminium, LEDs, speakers, kinect and electronics

Dimensions: variable

Post-Truth and Beauty aims to create a sensory experience analogous to the ungraspable nature of ‘truth’ by presenting partial glimpses into an abstract world of light and sound. Visitors are invited to interact with the work one at a time by entering into the speaker ring. Light and sound both change in response to where the viewer’s head is positioned. Different parts of this world are revealed as the viewer moves their head and changes their perspective.

The work responds to a descent we’ve felt since Brexit and Trump across the political spectrum into tribalist discourses of labels and ‘othering’. People seem increasingly certain that their own perspective grants them the real truth, while finding shallow reasons to dismiss those who disagree with them: out of touch, uneducated, elitist, victims of disinformation. Post-Truth and Beauty aims to provoke questions about how evidence and truth relate to perspective, authority and power. Where do we draw the line between subjective and objective reality, and why?