Issue 3.0 Truth and Fiction

Doubt can be productive, but in the current historical context, it assumes features of a chronic disease. According to Fredric Jameson, the crisis of representation is one of the symptoms of late capitalism and globalization. In other words, the complexity of economic, social, and political processes in an entangled globalized world surpasses the capacity of language and speech; it renders virtually impossible representation of this complexity by means of words or visual ¹imagery¹. This rupture between the everyday experience in and of itself and the horizon into which the experience is inscribed produces conspiracy theories promoting a falsely holistic worldview, sort of a coveted explanatory model but in an oversimplified, ²vulgar form². These challenges are not a novelty; they became apparent in the second half of the 20th century. However, they gained new importance over the last 10 years in the context of the post-truth and evolving technological basis of mass communications, expressed in the already visible domination of social media and an impending domination of artificial intelligence. This systemic inflammation of the postmodern and late capitalist cultural logic surfaces in many different areas of life. Politicians disguise themselves as amateur historians, and offer popular lectures on medieval history instead of political programs. Specialized media pop up, whose only function is to fact-check already published news. Moreover, some media outlets adopt provocative and satirical stance, and publish only fake news, which, paradoxically, does not make them sound less truthful. In the field of artistic and academic production, this chronic doubt is manifested through new genres. Instead of producing aesthetic objects, artists engage in investigative journalism, ³court proceedings³, and ⁴archival research⁴, while art institutions are transformed into political spaces where authors and audiences become political actors in their own right capable of readjusting political imagery and offering new visions of the future. Similarly, academic researchers adopt storytelling techniques and other alternative forms of self-expression which, ideally, should help bridge the Cartesian schism between theory and practice, envisioning truth as a sensory and aesthetic experience instead of reducing it to strict argumentation and scientific facts. In the third issue of Horizon we address these questions and bring together a new community of female authors representing the new generation of researchers and artists of the region that one might call Central Eurasia, spanning from Kyrgyzstan in the East to Georgia in the West. I hope that this community will turn out to be a stable entity and will continue to flourish around Horizon.

The HORIZON anthology (published since 2021) is an online collection of research and critical texts, videos and multimedia works (for example, video essays and interactive timelines). Authors include contemporary artists, curators, academics, etc. A new issue is published every autumn. The anthology is part of HORIZON, an online research platform of the “Tselinny” Center about contemporary art of Central Asia, its history and theory. является частью HORIZON - исследовательской онлайн-платформы ЦСК “Целинный” о современном искусстве Центральной Азии, его истории и теории.