Impossible to Verify
Impossible to Verify is a series of screenprints in response to the on-going conflict in Syria, and media coverage of it.
Some images are my own, and some are taken from television, YouTube and social media. The moving images are stilled in the medium of screenprinting in bold colours, creating a dialogue between form and content. The encounter is uncomfortable because an inherent tension arises between the medium and the subject.
Many sources of the images are labelled “impossible to verify” by mainstream media. Implicit in that label is the inference that the events depicted in the images may not have happened - if it cannot be verified, its veracity is questionable - it may not be real.
At the other end of the same spectrum, the label “based on a true story”, is compelling for an audience. Knowing that a story is not fiction, means it cannot be dismissed.
Since the First Gulf War, warfare has evolved into a video game played out on HD widescreens in our living rooms in the West. It has been de-humanised, and the audience numbed down.
Reports from “observers on the ground” are subject to verification. By whom? On what criteria?
Perhaps, the lack of verification is a convenient out? A reason not to engage? A way to undermine the seriousness of the situation? Easier to ignore if the report cannot be verified?
Surely, the sheer weight and number of unverified reports alone must go a long way to confirm their veracity.
The image of a man evacuating his family from a town being strafed by barrel bombs cannot be verified, but what goes on in the Big Brother House is real life.