Truth, Error, Opinion

A visual exploration of Martha Rosler’s Library, that is an associative response to a double-page spread in the book Eva Braun Hitler’s Mistress by Nerin E. Gun.

Truth, Error, Opinion was commissioned by Stills, Edinburgh as part of the symposium Unpacking her library: against the mild boredom of order that asked ‘How do artists use books? How is the visual used as knowledge? How does knowledge inform creative processes?’.

The symposium was introduced by Tracy & Edwin’s 20 minute silent presentation of Truth, Error, Opinion, a slide projection of 48 images.

The work is a visual exploration of Martha Rosler’s Library. It reveals an associative response through images to a double-page spread from one of the library’s books: Eva Braun Hitler’s Mistress by Nerin E. Gun.

Visual material from Tracy & Edwin’s archives and libraries was linked to the double-page spread image that in turn relate to areas they continue to research: war (conflict, history, locations of time); collecting (appropriation, representation of culture, use/misuse of culture, order); gender (visual representations of women); representation (through display, visual representations of history, cultural representation).

Central to the work is the assertion that artworks / visual materials are agents of knowledge, and that the non-verbal, the experiential and subjectivity are crucial in exploring book knowledge.

The limited edition publication Truth, Error, Opinion with a text by Edward Welch, who also contributed to the symposium, was published in November 2010.