Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to defend themselves. If we lose the institutions that produce facts that are pertinent to us, then we tend to wallow in attractive abstractions and fictions. Truth defends itself particularly poorly when there is not very much of it around, and the era of Trump — like the era of Vladimir Putin in Russia — is one of the decline of local news. Social media is no substitute: It supercharges the mental habits by which we seek emotional stimulation and comfort, which means losing the distinction between what feels true and what actually is true.
Post-truth wears away the rule of law and invites a regime of myth.
Timothy Snyder — "The American Abyss", The New York Times Magazine (January 9, 2021).
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The Daily Post-Truth is a joint project between the Communication Design Department of the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, and maat, developed within the scope of maat Mode 2020 programme. The project is motivated by a renewed interest in fiction, within artistic practices and design in particular, as one of the discursive modes that is best able to restore a sense of reality in an age governed by post-truth. Within this context, the newspaper, as one of the media that most evidently suffered the effects of disinformation, becomes prone to appropriation and recuperation. By creatively exploring this publishing model in crisis, while focusing on the tensions between truth and post-truth, fiction and reality, “The Daily Post-Truth” proposes the development of its own newspaper, through a sequence of four different stages. |
Characterised by an ever-changing spatial manifestation, the programmes in maat are organically developed around thematic axes (signified with an #), tackling the intricacies, wonders and unknowns of the historical present. Currently being worked on, the first of these will be: #commoning / The Design & Scale of the Common Good, #thetruth / “The Truth Was Supposed to Set Us Free” (Garry Kasparov) / #datamatters / Data, Fabric of Life. |
