TRUTH SERUM / performance
Technique: performance, psychoactive substance, interview
Duration: 1:30 h
2016
- During the performance the performer sits on a chair in a half darkened room, and the truth serum is injected into him. Visitors enter one by one and are allowed to ask a few questions, to which the subject shall provide truthful answers.
- One of the accepted definitions of truth is that it is a condition of being in accordance with facts or reality. But all individuals have their own truths, which differ from the truths of others. Here we are not dealing with simple, ordinary and accepted truths, such as mathematical facts, but rather with more complex philosophical and ethical truths, which directly relate to a person’s purposefulness, existence, ethical behaviour and morality. The phenomenon of accepting lies as truth (such as political and media spins) clearly shows that critical thinking is losing strength and that it is adjusting to the 'new truth' for the purpose of conforming individuals. Lie has become a substitute formula for truth. It enables the person telling it to avoid legal penalty, diminish the value of the opponent and constitute a new history. It is also a means of global ethical and moral devolution. The public is so used to the lie that it has become a generally accepted weapon of destruction, both on social and political, and also on personal and intimate levels. The truth serum refers to any psychoactive substance used on a subject in order to gain information impossible to obtain by other means of interrogation. It is often used by military intelligence operatives all over the world, labeled as 'narco-analysis'. Under the influence of the serum the thinking of the subject becomes extremely simple. The person finds it impossible to create false information, causing them to mostly tell the truth. Lying becomes a too complex operation for the brain, which is why truth (a very simple operation) turns out to be the most frequent answer.
