For my project, I am focusing on the idea of how oversimplifying the truth can be a form of illusion. So far, I have been thinking about this in a more political/historical context, given the current political climate. I believe nostalgia is an excellent example of how a simplified version of the truth can be illusionary. However, I have been struggling to decide on the best way to demonstrate this idea. Below I have several attempts to show this idea. They all focus on American history and how our collective memory of a certain time period may contradict the more harsh reality. These first two are experiments in how I could visually simplify a romantic version of the past. This one is another way I could alter a version of the past to hide part of the truth Similar to the last one, but this one I feel is less subtle. Contrasting romantic images of the past with images of the harsh reality could be another strategy. This one might make the viewer look twice to see the meaning. In this one, I overlaid an image of something awful over an idealized image to beautify the idealized. However, the reveal undercuts this to show the truth. In this case, I would have 5 lies and 5 truths (one of each of the 5 images).
