The Misinformation Virus

The Calligraphy Forrest

In a world of information abundance fake news and misinformation has never been so prevalent. Whether it is generated on an industrial scale within Troll factories in both east and west or free lanced out on the streets to naive teenagers; misinformation has now become part of the very fabric of the internet. Whether its climate change denial, influence of elections, or holocaust denial; little wonder why we are witnessing this significant growth in extremist regimes, dictatorships and the collapse of democracy. 

In this project Qu Lei Lei again examines this from a very human perspective. Here he is mourning the loss of integrity in our communication systems and the subsequent chaos into which we have both purposefully and unwittingly been plunged. There is an underlying voice begging the question:  what has happened to us? Is there anything real anymore?  Does anyone actually mean what they say? It also stands as an urgent call to arms in a world where we are to put it plainly sleepwalking our selves in to an oblivion of misinformation whereby we are making major decisions based on carefully constructed lies. Perhaps the worst consequence of this is that it undermines our critical thinking destroys debate and dampens our desire to question. Whether it is cyborgs, bots, or sock puppets any small fragment of truth can be reshaped, controlled, manipulated  and amplified out if its context to influence thought in a manner advantageous to a political system or campaign  The simple act of sharing information and forwarding it and passing it on; the sender unaware of its source of fabrication can so unwittingly contribute of an entire toxic system of misinformation. 

In terms of his process Qu Lei Lei has taken themes from genuine items of misinformation both historic and contemporary and translated them on to giant calligraphic banners.  Frequently in the bottom left hand corner he has created a collaged version of a seal with a genuine quote from current fake news translated in to Chinese. As with his previous projects he has drawn in the idea of our history being to an extent a mirror of the future as for instance one banner depicts the vanity of an emperor who dictated that all his courtiers identify a deer as if it were a horse, the point being an early portrayal of the reconstruction of reality for his own political ends. Finally, in the centre of the installation there is a reflective ball its spherical shape mirroring the entire artwork and the viewers in a slightly distorted manner so as to further portray a similar sense of the confusion of our reality.