The Art of the Fake

This hybrid studio / seminar course explores “the fake” as an artistic strategy and a cultural phenomenon. Students learn 3D software (Cinema 4D, Photoshop) to create images that appear convincingly photo-realistic, but have no correspondence to reality. We survey artists whose work involves forgery, false identity, sham narrative, artificial drama, pranks, white lies. The relationship between images and beliefs is explored through seminar discussion of philosophical texts (Latour, Lacan, Flusser, Sontag). We consider “the fake” in both its negative dimensions (political manipulation) and positive (the generative power of imagination).