Shorthand of Truth

ink on tracing paper, 100 x 500 cms, 2018

This work is a continuation of the earlier work called ‘Truth is somewhere between zero and one’. This is her attempt to address the so-called ‘post truth’ era where opinions and arguments are rather unmoored from demonstrable truths about the world. The last decade has seen an explosion of the ubiquitousness of social media in our lives today. News spreads through the internet unchecked and uncontrolled without anyone knowing where they originated. Nobody tracks your reliability. We are back in the world of rumour and gossip. ‘I believe what I read because I trust the people I have chosen to follow’.

The installation uses Pitman Shorthand that is in self was a kind of invented script. It has a distinct script of its own that is legible to only those who have learnt it but is indecipherable to others.

The work consists of two layers of tracing paper with the top layer having the shorthand script reminiscent of calligraphy and this was draped over the layer with English text on it. The length of the scrolls is five metres and this was hung from the ceiling down to the floor. From a distance one can only read the shorthand ‘letters’ but as you go closer the English text becomes more legible though faint as it is stood behind the first layer of paper.