Art of Deception

After a tutorial and feedback session with Gair, in which he remembered the artist we spoke about at the assessment presentation - Rod Dickinson, I have discovered some interesting visual and cognitive experimental tricks in which Rod has taken part.



Gair also suggested reading or watching the T.V adaptation of 'The Wave' based on an experiment called the 'Third Wave' which took place in California. All these experiments, and others such as the Milgram experiment, which Rod Dickinson based his contemporary exhibition on, involve duping members of the public or students into believing certain things from visual cues. Often this can lead to convincing people to take part in all kinds of activity, displaying the limits to which subjects are prepared to follow the orders of a supposed authority figure, by what they think they are seeing, or visualising. I find this incredibly interesting that we use learned cues to gauge a situation - such as someone in a uniform generally visually seen as a figure of authority. The idea of exploration into the structure and mechanisms that underpin systems of belief and social control also appeal, and I'm intrigued to see whether this holds for all cultures, races etc.