‌The Distorted View
‌Where does the distorted view begin‌‌‌?‌
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My practice seeks for creating the space as a visual realm using drawing, painting, printing and installation. I am exploring the distorted view that contemporary people experience. Through an interest in the relationship between memory and identity, it led me to look at a more expanded perspective of how distorted contemporary people judge when they understand each other or interpret perceptions of the phenomenon. So, I have started asking a question about "Where does the distorted view begin?"

For me, distortion comes from different interpretations from personal emotions and beliefs. This means that the difference is not necessarily wrong or right. This cognitive bias can be the basis of the distorted view, and society comes to various social problems with these opinions. A lot of people deny the facts and say, ‘there must have been a reason behind it’ despite facts were against the opinion. Such cases continue to be observed in a more extended form in the Post-Truth theory.

The Oxford Dictionaries define Post-Truth as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief. As Lee (2018, p. 5) notes, even though the phenomenon of 'post-truth' gained public attention due to 2016's Brexit vote and the US presidential election, the term does not only apply to politics but also to personal relationships and various social issues, such as science-denialism and climate change. According to Lee (2018), nowadays, the boundary of 'fact' and 'untruth' has become ambiguous, which leads people to believe in speculations, without bearing the responsibility for proof. Therefore this triggers ‘an alternative fact’ that is a new word as "additional facts and alternative information" that are provided to challenge the narrative created by facts that are hostile to one’s preferred belief (Lee, p. 173), and provided the cause for the public to create active hyperbole and distortion. My core subject is based on "Post-Truth". This theory covers the phenomenon as a whole when my concept is anguish about distorted contemporary people who are swayed by personal emotion and belief, and unable to look at the truth.
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‌‌A relevant novel in which I can see an example of the post-truth is Nineteen Eighty-Four written by George Orwell in 1949. The story describes an imagined future, the year 1984 when much of the world has fallen victim to perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance, historical negationism and propaganda. The Main terms, such as Big Brother, doublethink, telescreen, and memory hole, express between the fiction and real-life instances of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and violations of freedom of expression. Even though George Orwell wrote about 1984 with imagination, the story is still connected to issues of contemporary society. Namely, like telescreen that the novel primarily expressed, our data is being gathered by the platform of the Internet and social media. It means we can be intervented by propaganda and the manipulative agitation, and it can lead us having a distorted view. I think this novel is related to my concept as a distorted view and post-truth.
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‌‌An artist who has an impact on the material of my work is Robert Rauschenberg.  Starting in 1962, he would screen-print images from books and magazines, along with his photographs, onto the canvas to escape the familiarity of objects and collage. According to Hochdörfer, 'There is no single standpoint from which the disparate motifs might coalesce into a coherent whole. Rauschenberg instead appeals to the flexibility of the eye and to the body's physical mobility, which enables countless changes of perspective.' (2015, p.16)

He made layered paintings by introducing silkscreen that involves epic stories. His viewpoint has the effect of looking at several points rather than fixed to one, making it look like a flexible moving image. This makes the audience rethink and reorganise stories. They can decide their starting point and interpret by themselves in some hints of the painting. So, through the study of his concept and works, I introduced connoted and narrative objects as if I give a hint via objects into my practices.

Another artist who influenced me in terms of the methodology is Liam Gillick. As Gillick(1896) describes, the focus of Gillick' practice is evaluations of the aesthetics of social systems with a focus on modes of production. He is interested in forms of social organization that means a relationship between and among individuals and social group. Thus his practice is called by 'relational art' and 'relational aesthetics'. According to Schmuckli (2003),  through his writings and the use of specific materials in his artworks, Gillick examines how the built world carries traces of social, political and economic systems‌.

Through his translucent screen and platform works, he symbolically created a venue for discussions and negotiations. It expressed social correlation, especially through simple layouts without rules and suggested actions for social communication and exchange in this space. Also, he studied the relationship through chaotic or space-free alphabets. It was fascinating to me that I expressed the correlation within society by indicating the painting elements as architectural and minimalistic installations and drawing works of figurative character into interactive and relational art.

In terms of material, I focused on the combination with painting, silkscreen and installation. After I experimented abstract paintings and installation, I introduced silkscreen into my practice and connect to oil painting. In the method, I selected the context distortion and the image distortion to depict the distorted view. Firstly, the context distortion means the gap between text and symbolic object. However, I could not find the specific narrative in this work. So I just tried to create an interpretable interval with these symbols. Secondly, the image distortion represents the distorted reflection through the mirror. I intended viewers to interpret symbolic objects and texts between them and their reflection. I am satisfied that this work has created a space. However, the topic was not specific, although I wanted to create a forum for discussion. It was also not specific by introducing two different types of distortion into the practice.

In the next stage, I will focus on more specific ‘alternative fact or reality’ phenomenon of 'post-truth' issue and the context distortion to create an interpretable interval. And I will actively adopt painting elements such as point, line, plane, colours and chance-effect into practice and space. Namely, I will create the metaphorical space distorted due to the belief and emotion as an alternative reality with futurism or imagination.

Reference

Ammer, M. Hochdörfer, A. and Joselit, D. (2015) Painting 2.0 Gesture and Spectacle, Eccentric Figuration, Social Networks. Munich, Germany : Museum Brandhorst.

Gillick, L. and Lazzarato, M. (ed.) (2004) Underground (fragments of future histories). Brussels : Les Maîtres de Forme Contemporains.

Lee C. M. (2018) Post-truth. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press.

Schmuckli, C. (2003) Projects 79 : Liam Gillick, Literally. New York, N.Y. : MOMA (exhibition brochure).

Bibliography

Carr, Nicholas G. (2010) The shallows : how the Internet is changing the way we think, read and remember. London, England : Atlantic Books.

Deręgowski, Jan B. (1984) Distortion in art : the eye and the mind. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Gillick, L. (2010) Liam Gillick. Kunst : Snoeck Publishing Company.

Gillick, L. (2015) Liam Gillick From Nineteen Ninety A to Nineteen Ninety D. Edition. Edited by Y. Aupetitallot. and T, Eccles. Zurich, Switzerland : JRP/Ringier.

Gillick, L. (2009) Meaning Liam Gillick. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press.

Orwell, G. (1949) Nineteen Eighty-Four. London : Secker & Warburg.

Pariser, E. (2011) The filter bubble : what the Internet is hiding from you. New York, N.Y. : Penguin Press.
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Rauschnberg, R. (1968) Robert Rauschenberg. Amsterdam : Stedelijk Museum.
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Rauschnberg, R. (2005) Robert Rauschenberg. Valencia : IVAM Institut Valencià d'Art Modern.