How much of this is fiction at FACT
Polly Checkland Harding
False news has itself been one of the big stories of 2016; FACT’s major exhibition How much of this is fiction is, then, remarkably prescient. Exploring the shifting boundary between fiction and reality in a world of ‘post-truth politics’, this show brings together a selection of artists whose work involves the use of deception, tricks, hoaxes and hacks. How much of this is fiction will include !Mediengruppe Bitnik’s work Delivery for Mr. Assange: Julian Assange’s Room, a close replica of Assange’s room in the Ecuadorian Embassy, as well as site-specific installations and a trailer for a protest film that will never be made.
Organised into two zones – Zone 1: The Newsroom and Zone 2: Guantanamo Bay Museum for Art and History – the exhibition will also trace the precedence of false news back to the cultural-political movement Tactical Media in the late ’90s, including its hit-and-run interventions in the media sphere. As with the best satire, How much of this is fiction doesn’t set out merely to confuse; instead, the works on show are designed to ‘afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted’.
