Glass
2014 – Blitz Gallery, Valletta, Malta
2014 – Dar Malta, Belgium
“A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms- in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.” (Nietzsche, 1976)
Through the process of socialisation and normalisation, babies are shaped to believe in what we want them to. At that age, they find religious values and teachings attractive and only few of them attempt to challenge the status quo when they are older. In fact, the rest accept whatever they have been taught as being the truth. But in reality, have they found the truth? Or are they so extremely blinded by their own truth? Do we really want to know what the truth is? Can we handle the truth? What would you do? Forgive and forget? Or would you opt to take revenge? But an essential question is: what is it that indicates the discovery of truth? Is someone deceiving you? Is everything reduced to perception?
Similar to Nietzsche, Foucault compares how discourses are shaped to serve power. He talks of ‘regimes of truth’ which each culture constructs in order to function cohesively. Such regimes are constructed by institutions as religion or politics, and reinforced through institutions, such as education and media. But what if the regime is disturbed? When people attempt to reform, or actively challenge existent and accepted norms, high institutions that are fearful of diversity tend to induce censorship to constrain such radical overturns. This surveillance system is what leads those who do not conform to general norms to prisons and hospitals.
Similarly, Baudrillard’s extreme theory states that the truth is simulated and thus, the truth has no relationship to reality. Signs and symbols mediated through cultures perceive a type of reality that he refers to as ‘simulacra’. Persistently, he describes how simulacra precede reality. Such simulated truths legitimize the status quo and other established powers.