Furqat Palvan-Zade. Intro: 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 globalisation. In other words, the complexity of economic, social, and political processes in an entangled globalised world surpasses the capacity of language and speech; it renders virtually impossible representation of this complexity by means of words or visual imagery¹ 1 According to Jameson, one of the symptoms of late capitalism, postmodernism, and globalisation is the aesthetics of singularity, a kind of spatial turn, marking the renewed importance of space. Installation thus becomes the typical art form of the time while the curator acts as a creator of this new state of culture and potentially the sole bearer of the joint meaning of the strange objects collected in the space of an exhibition. He also mentions derivatives, an extremely complicated instrument of transnational insurance designed to satisfy the needs of multiple actors from different countries, as a symptomatic financial instrument of a globalised world. See, The Aesthetics of Singularity. https://newleftreview-org.yale.idm.oclc.org/issues/ii92/articles/fredric-jameson-the-aesthetics-of-singularity . 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, vulgar form² 2 On Fredric Jameson’s heritage see the obituary by the philosopher Elena Petrovskaya (in Russian) https://gorky.media/context/zavershit-marksizm-literaturoj/ . 

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 ‘post-truth’ and the evolving technological basis of mass communications, expressed in the already visible pervasiveness of social media and the 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 programmes. Specialised media emerge, whose only function is to fact-check already published news. Moreover, some media outlets adopt a 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 creating aesthetic objects, artists engage in investigative journalism, court proceedings³ 3 One of the most inspiring projects bordering the court proceedings is an activist project by Nan Goldin directed against Purdue Pharma Corporation and the Sackler family responsible for the opioid crisis in the USA. This legal battle is documented in the film All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022). , and archival research⁴ 4 Claire Bishop, "Information Overload," Artforum, April 2023, https://www.artforum.com/features/claire-bishop-on-the-superabundance-of-research-based-art-252571/ , while art institutions are transformed into spaces for civic engagement where authors and audiences become equally important, active participants, capable of readjusting collective imagination 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 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 continue to flourish around Horizon.

Authors in this issue: Alexandra Dennett, Leora Eisenberg, Dilda Ramazan, Anna Pronina, Nina Akhvlediani, George Spanderashvili, Bermet Borubayeva, Dana Iskakova, Azhar Dyussekenova, and Eleanor Womack.