Core Studies: 'The Hidden Truth'

Development of Ideas and Rationale

‘The Hidden Truth’ is a stencil installation piece, which uses light to hide and reveal the truth; just the way the government can pull a sheet over the eyes of the public to hide the truth within the media. These three stencil works are part of a series of sections showing how the Howard government presented false information to the Australian public throughout their 10 years in government.

The false information that was told to the public is represented in black spray paint on the canvas and can only be seen when the lights are turned on in the room (Canvas Lights On). Once the lights are turned off the truth is then revealed to the public with text that glows in the dark, which is painted on using phosphorescent spray paint, commonly known as ‘glow in the dark’ paint. The phosphorescent spray paint represents that if you look hard enough or question information everything isn’t as transparent as politicians lead to believe (Canvas Lights Off).   

Phosphorescent paint works by charging up under UV light over a period of time and once charged can glow in the dark for hours. ‘The Hidden Truth’, was created on canvas and I used stencils to create the lettering with black matte spray paint and phosphorescent spray paint.

The other two canvases have images on them showing the picture that was released to the public and the images that were hidden from the public. These images were printed on the computer and then sprayed with phosphorescent paint so the truth was visible. There are three images per section in the installation piece and each section has a light turning on and off on a ten second timer. This allows the phosphorescent paint to maintain charged and the truth is constantly revealed. As well as the lighting timer each section will also have audio from newscasts of politicians relating to each section these will be played on a loop.

 

Canvas Lights On: When the lights are turned you can only see the lies of the government.

Canvas Lights Off: When the lights are turned off the canvas discards the lies and deceit and the truth is revealed in a hidden message in phosphorescent paint.

Lies & Deceit: This canvas shows the image that was released to the media by the government in the children overboard scandal in 2001. This photograph was doctored by government officials to make it seem as if children were thrown overboard from the SIEV 4 when in fact this was not the case.  This image was made by printing a copy of the black and white photo onto the canvas then I stenciled letters onto it as well using black matte spray paint.  

The Truth: This canvas reveals two photos of what actually happened, these photos were taken by a navy officer and show that the SIEV 4 was in fact sinking and that’s why people were jumping into the water. This image was made the same way but I sprayed the photos with phosphorescent paint to make them glow in the dark as well as the letters.

Background Information

Section One – Children Overboard 2001

Section one consists of three paintings relating to the children overboard issue in 2001 where the government released two close up photographs to the media saying that asylum seekers were threatening the Australian Navy, by throwing children off their boat into the sea because they were not allowed into Australian waters. This in fact was not the case, a women was actually holding up her child in hope that the Navy would cease fire their warning shots as their were children onboard the ship. Their ship was then turned around and sent out of Australian waters. Their boat then began to sink and under international maritime law the Navy had to rescue the Asylum Seekers. The photographs released to the media by the government did not show or mention anything about their sinking boat as the photos were cropped to tell a different story to the public.

The picture in black and white was the cropped photograph that was released to the public in 2001. The other two photographs in phosphorescent ink on canvas three were a series of images taken by a naval officer at the time of the incident and these images were never released to the public at the time.

The real information was not supplied to the public at the time of the incident as it was during Prime Minister Howard’s 2001 election Campaign. This was because Asylum seekers and border security was one of his main election priorities.

In Senator Faulkner’s speech in the Maritime Inquiry Investigation of the children overboard scandal he said "The response to boat people or asylum seekers was the main focus of the Howard Government in the lead up to the last federal election. The Government's strategy was based on politicising the asylum seeker issue for electoral advantage. It wasn't just the Tampa episode, or the bald faced lies about children being thrown overboard, it was a systematic campaign to engender public fear about asylum seekers and the need to protect our borders against them at all costs."

Other Sections in Exhibition

Section One- Children Overboard Part I

In 2001 the government released two close-up photos of children in the sea

The photos were actually doctored to hide the sinking ship in the background from the public.

It was said that these photos were taken after children were thrown overboard from the SIEV 4

 

Section Two- Children Overboard Part II

Defence Minister, Peter Reith told the media there was a video of the incident.

            But the video does not indicate that children were thrown into the water

            His response “Well, we’d better not see the video”.

 

Other Sections will touch on issues such as:

Section Three- Introduction of GST Part I

Section Four- Introduction of GST Part II

Section Five- Work place reform Part I

Section Six- Workplace Reform Part II

Section Seven- Terrorism Part I

Section Eight- Terrorism Part II

 

Conceptual Sketches

  Image Above: Conceptual image of how the exhibition may potentially be arranged.

 

Video: This is a simulation of how the audience will view the exhibition along with audio from newscasts. 

Image Above:  This is how the canvas was planned to be laid out will be laid out. The black text symbolizes the lies which the government has told the public, and the squiggly lines symbolize the truth, which is hidden between the lies.

Evaluation

After completing section one of ‘The Hidden Truth’ the initial feedback was that the work formally explored a unique approach by using light to hide and reveal the truth. The Hidden Truth has many successful elements in the piece and conveys a strong message that is easily interpreted by everyone. Formally I found it was very successful the text was clear with the lights on and once they were turned off everyone could clearly see the ‘Truth’ in the hidden message.  

Another successful element of ‘The Hidden Truth’, was that people were shocked that were actually misled and they wanted to find out what actually happened. This reiterated that an exhibition of these works would be really effective in captivating an audience’s attention. I found that there were no real weaknesses in “The Hidden Truth’ if I was to continue onto other canvases I might however change the background colour to conceal the phosphorescent text a bit more. Overall I found this project very effective in portraying my message to the audience with light as my medium to hide and reveal the truth.