ALL ARTISTS LIE WHEN THEY ARE TELLING THE TRUTH. TRUTH AND LIE HAVE NO MEANING.
How do artists perceive the world? The answer is the same way as everyone else. We all input sensory data. It’s what happens to that data that is interesting. The simplistic answer is that the two hemispheres of the brain operate in different ways. One half gathers experiences and the other creates probable or plausible narratives to explain the experiences. The brain discards most of the sensory experience retaining only the peaks and averages, mixes them up with film we’ve seen, books we’ve read, podcasts we’ve heard and what we recall of dreams, to create new narratives. This we praise as imagination and artists are supposed to have more of it than ordinary people. However, there in another process at work which determines what kind of narratives we create and the questions of what is truth, what is a lie, what is original and what is an imitation, all come into play.
That part of the brain which creates the narratives isn’t just reorganising data in a random fashion. Imagination is based upon stored algorithms. Algorithms? Aren’t they the province of computers and computer programmers? Yes, they are but the brain works in a similar way according to recent scientific study. In order to create narratives the brain works with what it already knows, what it has genetically inherited as well as culture, upbringing, social interaction and an endless collection of past experiences all playing a part. The narratives aren’t dependent upon just new sensory information. When we use imagination to create anything, how much is already programmed?
But algorithms as the basis for imagination – that is enough to shake anyone’s faith. Why do we choose particular colours, shapes or forms? Why those combinations? The inbuilt algorithms have a lot to do with it. We inherit. It’s as simple as that. When my father died I saw for the first time the paintings and drawings he had made over a lifetime. We hadn’t lived in the same country since the middle of the 21st century and had little contact other than by phone. He wasn’t a trained artist and had never evolved a personal style let alone delved into art theory but…….I recognised patterns in his way of working that were very familiar. I was looking at something that I might have created. There was little on which to base a theory of inherited algorithms from previous generations of my family in that none were artists, but I’m willing to bet that the evidence was probably there but never recorded.
Family aside, the same artistic problems and solutions reoccur throughout history to say nothing of the mere seven storylines upon which all of the world’s films, books and stories are based. While there is debate about the number of stories, much is just hair-splitting. The personal journey, the group journey, the love triangle, the group located in one place, revenge and family problems account for most of what can be found on Netflix as a current example. There are no new storylines to be invented. Why those storylines though? Simply put, they are inherited algorithms just as the necessity to draw and paint pictures is no different today than it ever was. Aboriginal rock art and cave painting in northern Spain are living examples of the longevity of this sort of response to the world.
So, artists are no different to anyone else, except maybe in degree, in their ability to input sensory data and mix it up. Algorithms aside though, the acts of perceiving or seeing [to focus on one source of sensory input] present all sorts of problems. There have been any number of experiments to explain what people see, or don’t see. The experiments I’m thinking of required groups of people to report as accurately as possible what they saw of an accident or event. This is the basis of police evidence and truth to be sworn to in court. One of the memory/observation experiments may well produce results such as these based upon a car accident. The cars involved could be dark blue, brown, or black depending upon your notion of dark or alternatively white, yellow, tan or pale blue to account for pale. They could be driven by a man, a woman or no one at all. The order of events could also vary considerably. The blue car entered the intersection first. The black car hit it side on at speed. The brown car reversed into the blue car. The driver of the blue car was aggressive and waved his fist. She or he was dressed in plaid/checks/stripes and was about fifty/forty/ thirty years of age. The fight started immediately. The fight happened five minutes later. She threw the first punch or was she just defending herself with a raised arm? And so on. All saw the same event but the variation in the accounts leaves a bewildering picture of ‘truth’? It also brings into question of just what is a ‘lie’. The narrative had been processed in a variety of ways from input data to knowledge of such events from Hollywood fictions. Which one was true? In effect, all of them? Which one was a lie? In reality, all of them.
However, what sets apart artists is their ability to process that data or information in seemingly unique ways and is one of the reasons that artists probably shouldn’t be expected to tell the truth in a court situation or for a court to accept their version of events no matter how many bibles are involved. Truth and lie simply don’t exist as infallible assessments of data. The work of artists can never be assessed in this way. Whatever artists produce is a form of truth, if that term has any meaning, in that they believe that their feat of processed imagination is a reality in its own right.
Art has been seen and lauded as the ‘truth’ of the times, that the arts reflect the reality of life and its concerns at any point in history. Maybe that is true in retrospect. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other. If, as I suspect, inherited algorithms are the basis for all of art making then to use art to explain history is a nonsense. To ask artists to be the eyes and ears of history is even more of a nonsense, The drawing of outlines around objects as part of art practice will no doubt continue into the future but that doesn’t make it any more valid as a way of interpreting the world than anything artists might do. In the end, we are all on repeat, responding ad nauseam to triggers laid down at the outset of human consciousness. Depressing isn’t it!