Mini-Project 6 - Contextualisation & Plausibility

Duration: 23rd - 29th November

For this project, I aim to explore the usefulness of 'context' while lying. It's all very well being able to lie in the moment, but what if evidence or discrepancies in a story lead the person being lied to to the truth? In order to lie with complete plausibility, every little detail of a story should be considered.
I will be asking people to answer the following multiple-choice questions. One of each of the three statements is true, while the others are lies. I will also present each person with an additional choice; that of the way in which I present the questions.

Choice 1: They read the options from the paper, while I sit in silence, subtly highlighting the correct answer in my posture and facial expressions.

Choice 2: I read the options to them, subtly highlighting the correct answer in my speech.

Choice 3: I read the options to them, following each with a brief explanation. 

Choice 4: I allow them to search through my (prepared) bag in order to find evidence pointing to the right answer.

If all goes to plan, the people who select choice 4 should get many more questions right than those who go for choice 1.

Gender:

Age:      

Context:

My name is Thomas                                                

My name is James                                                

My name is Phil      
                                              

I am 18 years old                                                       

I am 21 years old                                                       

I am 23 years old                                                       

I am a smoker                                                       

I am a non-smoker                                                

I am an ex-smoker                                                

I take the bus                                                       

I ride a bike                                                              

I drive a car                                                              

I have tattoos                                                       

I have no tattoos                                                       

I want tattoos                                                       

I am a lifeguard                                                      

I am a waiter                                                       

I am unemployed                                                

I am right-handed                                               

I am left-handed                                                       

I am ambidextrous                                                

I have one sister                                                       

I have one brother                                                

I am an only child                                                

I am single                                                              

I am in a relationship                                                

I am engaged                                                       

My favourite colour is red                                         

My favourite colour is blue                                  

My favourite colour is purple                                  

My favourite writer is Cormac McCarthy             

My favourite writer is Jose Saramago                     

My favourite writer is John Berger                           

I used to be a vegetarian                                         

I have been a vegetarian for the past year             

I have been a vegetarian for the past 2 months      

I play the bass guitar                                                

I play the saxophone                                                

I play the drums                                                       

I am a Christian                                                       

I am a Buddhist                                                       

I am an atheist                                                       

I prefer romantic movies                                        

I prefer horror movies                                         

I prefer science fiction movies                

Feel free to answer these questions yourself, and post below in the comments section. Please bear in mind that the choice of deliveries is limited to reading from the screen, but feel free to phone me if you have my number so that I can read them to you, using either delivery choice 2 or 3.

Mini-Project 5 - Card Tricks

Duration: 20th November - ??? (Ongoing)

Card tricks are an interesting form of deception, in that the audience let themselves believe the lie that the magician is doing the trick through 'magic', when in fact they know that the performer has total control over what is happening. So with the help of Jean Hugard and Frederick Braue's book 'The Royal Road to Card Magic' I aim to master a good number of tricks, for use in future projects or everyday.

Mini-Project 4 - Radical Honesty

Duration: 16th - 20th November

For the next four days, I will be saying nothing but the truth. No sugar-coating, no editing; just the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I'll start now: I'm not looking forward to this.
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What It Is To Tell The Truth

To tell the truth is to have no fear.

To tell the truth is to invite intimacy.

To tell the truth is to feel just.

To tell the truth is to step out of the dark.

To tell the truth is to relieve a certain pressure.

To tell the truth is to simplify or complicate.

To tell the truth is to expose oneself and lie naked.

To tell the truth is to meddle.

To tell the truth is to gift.

Mini-Project 3 - Subtleties

Duration: 8th - 14th November

Today I wore a ring on the finger usually reserved for wedding rings. I felt something: I felt guilty. I was lying to everyone who looked at me. I made a false first impression; that of a married man. It didn't matter if the people talked to me, or even noticed the ring, but I was portraying myself as something I'm not.
When we see someone, we immediately make up a story about them in our minds. we imagine their house or their car, or the job they do. All of this is done in the first two seconds of meeting someone. (See the work of Malcolm Gladwell here)
This Mini-Project is a performance in the minds of onlookers. I am effectively acting as a character, who is married, or a businessman, or a homeless guy, or is having an argument on the phone, or is overly-stressed. Whether they know it or not, I am lying.

'Let's suppose you are talking to a friend about how terrible you felt when the vet told you that your dearly loved dog would not survive his illness. Telling the story causes you to re-experience and show grief, and as your friend listens, she also begins to look very sad. That is not uncommon, even though it is not your friend's dog, not your friend's loss. All of us can feel the emotions that others feel, feeling emotions empathetically...
It doesn't always happen; it won't happen if we don't care about the person, if we don't in someway identify with the person. And sometimes we witness someone's emotions and feel an entirely different emotion. For example, we may be contemptuous of them for getting so angry or afraid, or afraid of the anger they show.
It need not be a friend whose misfortune sets off our empathic emotional reaction. It could be a perfect stranger, and that stranger may not even be in our presence.'
(Ekman, P. 2004 Emotions Revealed 2nd ed. UK: Orion Books)
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What It Is To Tell A Lie

To tell a lie is to reinvent yourself in the moment.

To tell a lie is to attack.

To tell a lie is to miss bits out.

To tell a lie is to save someone.

To tell a lie is to make-believe.

To tell a lie is to start something.

To tell a lie is to become paranoid.

To tell a lie is to mislead.

To tell a lie is to disrupt decency.

Mini-Project 2 - What Lies Beneath

Duration: 25th Oct - 5th November (Ongoing)

Most lies hurt. They are an attack on one individual's trust by another, and so leave us wounded. What if this attack was turned into a positive feeling, leaving the wounded with a sense of joy? Over this time I will be exploring ways to lie to instill a positive feeling in others.

I don't necessarily mean lying to cover up a negative point, i.e. 'Your new haircut really suits you' when you really don't like it, but more a lie of the Father Christmas variety: A lie which creates excitement and wonder.

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This Mini-Project is taking a new shape: That of a semi-guided tour around the sights of Taunton (Think Wrights & Sites, but more tongue-in-cheek) A guidebook placed in Taunton Library leads the tourist on a farcical tour of Taunton, pointing out places of interest. Whilst still lying, I am allowing participants to see through the lies, hopefully in a humorous way. Here are some examples of the text for certain sites:

Library

We start at the library, a building built to house knowledge, but ironically little is known about its origins. Some say it has been here since the beginning of time, hovering in space until the Earth was made, at which point gravity pulled it in and stuck it to the ground. Others say this site was a simple multi-storey car park until late November 1959, when nearby residents were awoken one night to the sound of struggling. They looked out to see what was happening, and saw about a dozen men squeezing the library into its current position with giant shoehorns. It reportedly took them quite a while.
Archaeological digs in the early 1970s found the ‘Children’s section’ of the library now stands directly on top of what is believed to be the village crèche of an ancient settlement, where the women would care for the young while the men were out hunting.
Subsequent digs uncovered the remains of an ancient version of a video games console, along with a 14” television. It is still unclear as to how the devices were powered however, but many have linked these finds to the discovery of a child-sized hamster wheel found nearby.

The High Street

The High Street is so named, quite simply, because it used to be a lot higher up. The street level was once 6 feet above its current level, due to fears of flooding. Town planners built the street on pillars, allowing excess water to flow freely underneath, whilst keeping the shoes of residents dry. This understandably caused great irritation to the shop owners, as no one could enter their stores, and so, following a series of complaints and petitions, along with the fact that the street had never actually been flooded, thus negating its purpose, the High Street was lowered to the level it is now in 2005.

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The booklets are now in place in Taunton's Tourist Information, ready to lead you. Any feedback on the walk would be greatly appreciated, just post a comment below.

Mini-Project 1 - The Book of Lies

Duration: 12th - 22nd October

A number of blank books are left at various locations around Taunton, asking people to share their lies:

Dear reader,

Do you have something you want to get off your chest? Or do you want to play make-believe?
Inside you will find blank pages. Please use these pages to share a lie you’ve told, or tell a new one.

Be creative,
Be sincere,
Be profound,
Be funny,
Draw a picture,
Use a whole page or just a corner,
Leave your name or remain anonymous:
Express it in any way you want: it’s your lie!

I ask only that you do not swear, or use this as a way to hurt or offend others. The book will be checked everyday, and any entries deemed to be inappropriate may be edited or removed, sorry. Share a lie for your own peace of mind or satisfaction, and enjoy the freedom.

This is the first mini-project of a ten-week long artistic exploration into the art of lying. Your contribution may influence a future event, performance or artwork, so keep an eye out! If you want to be kept up to date on this project and future ones, please leave your e-mail on the back page, or visit:

http://the-art-of-lying.blogspot.com

Thanks, and please don’t steal the pen!

Olio & Farina - Taunton

Tournedo's No.1 - Taunton

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 After ten days, the books were collected in. Below is a full list of the contributions:

•    Whoever said length isn’t important is a fool or a liar!

•    “Mine’s 8 inches!”

•    Liar, liar, pants on fire!

•    The Lord’s my Shepard, I shall not want. He makes me down to lie…

•    When the boss at work asks me where one of my colleagues is, I will only tell him where he was working last, even when I know he’s not at work. I’m not lying to the boss, but I don’t tell him the truth either.

•    My mother has a habit of always asking me how much my hair has cost me… why, why? And for some reason, I can never tell her the truth!

•    “We lie to protect!”

•    “Lies, damned lies & statistics.”

•    But the truth has a habit of coming out. So who we tried to protect will get even more hurt!??

•    Of course I don’t fancy her.

•    “What this old thing? New? No, I’ve had it for ages, found it in the back of a cupboard.

•    I LIKE CHEESE ☺ xxx

•     - The lie of the land - Check it out first…

•    LIES ARE BAD

•    I love you!

•    This book is a really good idea! Honestly!

•    New? Of course these aren’t new, I’ve had them for ages!

•    “It really doesn’t matter what you say… Just say it once and say it with confidence and people will always believe you.” – My Dad.

•    Thank you Readers & contributors,
We have reached the mid-way part of this government-sponsored trial.
The aim of this project is to identify new and innovative ways to ‘pull the wool over your eyes’ YES YOU the proletariat…
Keep them coming…
Already agreed lies to look out for?
Vote for me, I have your interests at heart (My how we laughed at that one!!)
NO NEW TAXES! (Please, how gullible are you?)
OK, due to cutbacks we can no longer continue with this proj…

•    “So then, tell me a lie you’ve told me” she said.
“I don’t tell you lies!” he said.

•    “I’m delighted to see you!”

•    “I’m fine, thanks.”

•    Those harem pants really suit you – isn’t it great that they’re back in fashion?

•    When I was a kid, mum and dad would often go out for the evening and leave us & trust us to go to bed on time. We’d often still be up when they came home and would point to the clock, saying: But it’s only eight o’clock.” The clock in the living room would often stop. Very often when mum and dad went out. My guess is that they knew full well that we stopped the clock ourselves. They never said.

•    “Christine, did you cut the cat’s whiskers off?”
“No daddy.”

•    Mother in law gives gift and enthusiastically declares “Isn’t it nice!”
“Thank you, yes!”

•    I never lie!

•    Breast-feeding is just so easy – anybody can do it.

•    The statement below is TRUE…
The statement above is FALSE…

•    King David wrote: “All men are lions”
Now, David was a man…

•    “Er…So sorry we didn’t see Judith…”

•    Having woken up on Valentine’s Day with my reasonably new boyfriend, I was slightly miffed to discover no card/ no flowers. Throughout the day I slowly got more and more annoyed. After discussing the situation with a close friend, we decided to pay him back for his lack of thought.
Off I went to the local town & bought myself 6 red roses! Then rushed back to my house before he got home to pretend they had been delivered & I thought they were from him. I even wrote on the card … “Love?”
He turned up an hour later. 12 red roses, dinner booked in a restaurant, saw the roses I had bought – I thanked him for both.
He never admitted he didn’t send them, & I never admitted I bought them.
Needless to say we didn’t last!

•    Honest Dad, I promise I didn’t put dolly mixtures in the VCR, it was Sooty (the cat!)

•    Kids love them…… Sometimes a joy
Sometimes a pain…… but they are ours. Our choice!

•    My 18-month-old son is the next Rolf Harris!! ☺

•    My husband only told me he was infertile after I became pregnant!