Oscar Wilde famously wrote that truth is entirely a matter of style:

Art, breaking from the prison-house of realism, will run to greet him, and will kiss his false, beautiful lips, knowing that he alone is in possession of
the great secret of all her manifestations, the secret that Truth
is entirely and absolutely a matter of style; while Life–poor,
probable, uninteresting human life–tired of repeating herself for
the benefit of Mr. Herbert Spencer, scientific historians, and the
compilers of statistics in general, will follow meekly after him,
and try to reproduce, in her own simple and untutored way, some of
the marvels of which he talks.

This reflection, taken from his dialogue The Decay of Lying, dramatizes what I also consider to be art’s most potent effect: that of playing with the absoluteness of truth and perhaps molding what we consider to be reality and/or life in the process. This consideration, of how style can (mis)represent truth, is especially relevant today when we are bombarded with digital information from authors all across the world and across all ideological spectrums. Our ideas of what truths “sound” like must be challenged or we will resort to consuming content in our own personal echo chamber.

Beyond the inherent veracity or lack of veracity in the content we consume, there also lies the possible loss of its relative value. In the book Narrating Space/Spatializing Narrative, mentioned in a previous unit update, the authors argue that “If we don’t find a way to filter out unwanted messages, we will walk in a reality augmented by the fleeting thoughts of every passerby.” This suggests that the digital age requires everyone to be a curator of content.

This new muscle we need to develop is what I want to stimulate with my Dream of a Theatre experience. I want the center of consumption to be self-aware, constantly changing, and unrealistic. I want it to mimic the feeling of walking into a complex relationship between objects, languages, bodies, that has no inherent absolute truth. I want it to be jarring and for it to involve a juxtaposition with big entertainment franchises. I think these blockbusters are a perfect analogy for truth being a matter of style, since below their slick conventions lie, undoubtedly, political and social idealogies. The same is true for any personal blog writer, be it about cosmetics or food, and especially true for journalists. Objectivity is never fully acheived, since the very act of choosing which facts to include involves choosing which not to include.

I don’t think we should aspire to perfect objectivity, perhaps just an awareness of how language can hide as much as it can reveal. More and more we try to appear more systematic, yet we’re trying to mold our data into ways we deem superior to our natural ways of perceiving, all the while being driven by the same initial perception we judged as incorrect or inefficient. Consider this project as a reaction to this sentiment and a celebration of that perceptive feebleness where everything inevitably changes right under our noses.