HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Telling the truth about the world takes many forms
Mike van Graan’s new play is a finely wrought piece that challenges mimetic ‘truth’ about migrants’ lived experience, wires Chris Thurman
Last year was the year of "post-truth" and barely three weeks into 2017, Donald Trump’s Orwellian lie machine belched out the phrase "alternative facts". Falsehood parading as verity is a phenomenon as old as human communication. Paradoxically, although we live in an era that offers sophisticated tools for fact-checking, the notion of truth has been put on the endangered species list. There are, of course, philosophical, psychological and material grounds on which to question the notion of absolute truth. Two people can witness the same event and give directly opposing accounts. Claims about religious or ideological truth are dubious and should be met with a healthy dose of relativism. Quantum mechanics has taught us to accept that "both/and" is a necessary way of describing the physical universe. We are on slippery ground when truth merges with subjectivity and perception. What about "truth" in the arts? For millennia, artists have struggled with the opposition of history and scien...
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