The Truth
Is Out There

“We're drowning (not waving)

in a sea of data…

Data, data everywhere,

but not a drop of information.”

US National Security Agencу

I used to be a journalist fighting fake news. I produced detailed long reads to debunk viral falsehoods. I couldn’t help but wonder whether any of my multi-layered quests for truth reached their target audience.

I became interested in how people consume information and how the information spreads in society. My research led me to the concept of apophenia—a phenomenal ability of the human brain to make connections between random facts.

Psychologists think that it is actually not a flaw, but a mechanism crucial for survival. The ability to detect patterns in the surrounding environment helped humans to recognize danger and stay safe.

Apophenia is key to understanding conspiracy theories. There is an overabundance of information, and the human brain is desperate to make sense of it all. It creates meaningless connections between random facts in an attempt to bring order out of chaos.

The mechanism which was once crucial for safety now poses danger itself.

Conspiracy theories exist in the mind’s liminal space, where the mind has already left dry facts but hasn't reached pure fiction yet. My investigation of conspiracy thinking brings me to the real-world liminal spaces: parking lots, hallways, stairwells, waiting rooms—all kinds of spaces that exist to connect here and there.

Photographic images are routinely treated as evidence and as a tool for understanding reality. Yet its ability to construct narratives and overcome the distance between reality and fiction is hard to deny.

In this project, I am probing the medium’s ability to reflect reality. To do so, I use a variety of artistic approaches. I photograph found objects and compose newsworthy situations, I use documentary photography, appropriated images, photographic typology, and graphic design techniques.

I investigate how mixing these approaches results in a paranoia-fuelled narrative where truths and falsehoods blend together and photography becomes evidence of fabrication.