Fictive art is a practice that involves the production of objects, events, and entities designed to support the plausibility of a central narrative. Fictive art projects disguise their fictional essence by incorporating materials that stand as evidence for narrative factuality and thus are designed to deceive the viewer as to their ontological status. Very often, these materials take a form that carries presumptive cultural authority, such as 'historical' photographs or 'scientific' data. The key tension in fictive art projects stems from the impossibility of 'making real' a fiction, no matter how many or what kinds of objects are produced as evidence. Since fictive art projects are designed to pass at least temporarily as 'real', fictive artists may draw opprobrium as hoaxers, pranksters, forgers, or con artists when their projects are revealed as fictional.
History and usage
The term fictive art was originated by the artists
Antoinette LaFarge and
Lise Patt, in the title of a panel at the College Art Association Conference of 2004. It is allied to the terms
superfiction
A superfiction is a visual or conceptual artwork which uses fiction and appropriation to mirror organizations, business structures, and/or the lives of invented individuals (Hill). The term was coined by Glasgow-born artist Peter Hill in 1989. ...
and
parafiction but, unlike both, does not construct the central activity as a departure from (super, para) fiction. Instead, it argues for the primacy of the visual art components, emphasizing the role they play in establishing, extending, and enabling the central narrative. A number of exhibitions in recent years have included examples of fictive art as part of broad explorations of the relationship between media, illusion, and deception; examples include "More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness" at SITE Santa Fe (2012) and "Faking It" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2012). Antoninette LaFarge'
Sting in the Tale: Art, Hoax and Provocation(2021) published an exhaustive review of many practitioners of fictive art.
Examples of fictive art
Fictive art has antecedents going back several centuries; for example, the 'Rowley' creations of
Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Chatterton (20 November 1752 – 24 August 1770) was an English poet whose precocious talents ended in suicide at age 17. He was an influence on Romantic artists of the period such as Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Altho ...
, the 'Formosan' inventions of
George Psalmanazar, or the
Cottingley fairy photographs. With the rise of mass media in the second half of the 20th century, the practice of fictive art has expanded; it now includes such familiar forms as exhibitions and
mockumentaries
A mockumentary (a Blend word, blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary.
These productions are often used to analyze or ...
. Notable practitioners and projects include
Norman DalyThe Civilization of Llhuros 1972, David Wilson (
The Museum of Jurassic Technology) 1988,
Nicholas Kahn and Richard Selesnick (The Circular River) 1989-99
Beauvais Lyons(The Hokes Archives) 1990,
(Sputnik) 1997,
Eve Andree Laramee (Yves Fissiault) 1997, and
Jim Shaw (O-ism) 1970s.
References
*Art Beat Lexington
Fictive Art: The Art of Prank.*Cabinet of Wonders
*LaFarge, Antoinette. "Eisbergfreistadt: The Fictive and the Sublime." ''Visual Communications Quarterly'', Fall/Winter 2009-10.
*Miranda, Maria. "Fictive Art in New Media." ''IEEE MultiMedia'', April–June 2003.
*LaFarge, Antoinette. Sting in the Tale: At, Hoax and Provocation (Los Angeles: Dopplehouse Press, 2021.)
Art movements
Concepts in aesthetics
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