Fact and fiction.

First speech and then writing have tried to describe the world of things and emotions. Naming, describing, and inventing new concepts and different points of view has been a long, slow process of increasing complexity. Very early on, if not from the start, words concerned two different and distinct domains. One discourse was about the practicalities of the environment and how to act upon it, about leaning to survive materially and socially. The other was a transmission of myths and legends that explained the unexplainable. Over time the first encroached on the second and gave rise to a new literary form that proclaimed its fictional nature. Fiction and non-fiction became separate well defined genres, using the same language and occasionally covering the same subjects. Literature described a universe that might be or could be. Science tried to put in words the universe that was.

In the mid-19^th century came the first daguerreotypes, and fifty years later the cinematograph. Another fifty years and television was becoming a domestic banality. In a century and a half, images moved from a marginal position to a preponderant one. In the past painters and sculptors had attempted to imitate a static reality (photography forced them onto other paths), whereas the new images were reality in motion. The camera made a perfect two dimensional image of events taking place in front of its lens. However, almost from the start, attempts were made to falsify photographic reality, with painted back-cloths, successive expositions or scissors and glue. But it was the cinema that innovated the most in all kinds of fictional imagery, showing great ingenuity during the celluloid era, and disposing of unlimited possibilities since the advent of digital pictures. As with words, images can be categorised as fiction and non-fiction, and both modes of transmission are frequently misleading as to where they belong.

Fact and fiction have always jostled for position, as have objective and subjective perceptions. But spoken and written words pass through the filters of the mind, where they are transformed into their significations. Making sense of words brings into perspective their contextual meaning. Images do not follow that process. The eyes and the mind see them in the same way as they see the surrounding reality. A similitude enhanced by colour and 3D. The direct perception of images makes them more emotional than words, and more difficult to categorise. Being subjected to a constant flow of images, where spectacle, spectacular news and advertising succeed one another indiscriminately, does not help either. Real events can seem less credible than an improbable sitcom, because they lack its visual and theatrical qualities. Advertising is particularly confusing, as it shows material and buyable products in an imaginary environment.

During the 20^th century industrial nations passed from the cerebral distance of print to the rhythmic pulse of sound, and on to the emotional involvement of images. The predominance of print coincided with colonial conquest and administration, a period of imperial expansion that was concluded by the declaration of war in 1914. Then radio and sound systems coincided with the rise of totalitarian regimes, hypnotic orators and WW2. Finally, images have coincided with the emergence of flower power, human rights, the preservation of wildlife and asymmetric/proxy wars. Are these coincidences fortuitous, or does a change of sense perception, between audition and vision, modify the way things are perceived, and result in psychical and social transformations? Other factors, such as the balance of nuclear terror during the Cold War, global trade/plunder and the digital revolution, played their part in shaping events. But the world’s description, the way it is represented is the foundation of a functioning mind, of thoughts, ideas, theory, theology, etc. The passage from the printed page to the loud-speaker, and on to the pixelated image, consists of two radical changes in points of view, of two successive mental restructurings.

The industrial nations have three levels of mediated perception at their disposal, and internet has made them equally available. The union of text, audio and video in the same digital format has made cross-overs very easy, which in turn has greatly clarified the distinction between fact and fiction. Information and knowledge, impressions and emotions are no longer the monopoly of press barons and media moguls, nor can they be subjected to explicit or implicit state control. They can no longer be manipulated at will. Checking, comparing and weighing up have been made possible on an unprecedented scale, and their effects are only beginning to be felt. However, close to a billion humans are illiterate and countless numbers are not digitally connected. These myriads are stuck in an oral limbo. They are exposed to the throb of sound and, increasingly, to the emotion of images, without the abstract mind set of literacy. And their digital disconnection deprives them of contradictory sources. Their perception of the world is constructed by the terrestrial and satellite emissions of governments and corporations, and by the more or less clandestine circulation of recordings.

The rhythmic pulse of audio produces a form of hypnosis, an abandonment that opens to suggestion and consent. It has always been the instrument of demagogues, actors and singers, but its electrification multiplied the effects. It has been and is used to mystify people and to make them wonder, laugh and dance, and occasionally to give words to a silent reality. The trance like state induced by loud pulsing sounds has often been used unscrupulously, and still is when it is not offset by other media. Learning to read and write takes time and needs a primary education system that includes everyone. Considering that literacy is still not universal in developed countries, what hope is there for developing and un-developing nations? And many languages are not written, so that literacy means acquiring another language usually that of past colonial rulers. Sound is not confronted by this problem as it conveys every idiom, just as images can represent any cultural or social domain. Sound is ethnic and tribal. It expresses the locality of voice and music. Images are also localised geographically and socially, but their message of empathy transcends differences and makes them comprehensive for all. And their growing diffusion is the best encouragement for mutual understanding as fellow human beings.