I will give you a penny for every time you tell a truth—
you will never be very rich in no time.

Deception, deceit, hoax, delusion, guile, fraud, fraudulence, cheat, dishonesty, lie, falsehood, untruth, mendacity, mockery, prevaricate, equivocate.

A lie is an assertion believed to be false, typically told with the intention of deceiving someone. The act of lying is called lying. A person who tells a lie may be called a liar.

Few human behaviors are as paradoxical as lying. We learn as children that it’s wrong, yet we lie every day in the name of civility. We consider habitual liars untrustworthy, yet those who lie too little are called naïve. We expect marketers and politicians to lie—and yet express outrage when they do.

—Richard A. Friedman, M.D.

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Why do we tell lies?

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I moved to London, and two years later, the Brexit vote campaign began. I’m from South America—Uruguay, to be precise—and I spent my teenage years and part of my adult life there. I had already lived through many political campaigns. I also lived in the United States for seven years—the land of marketing and not-quite-truth.

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Still, I had never seen anything like the manipulation of the Brexit campaign.

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As an artist, you constantly have to prove your worth. You show, talk, explain. You must be coherent and consistent with your work. I’ve observed how doctors, architects, engineers—so many professionals—must undergo years of study, be judged by committees, pass tests, and face real consequences when they make a mistake.

And yet in the UK, I saw a flood of misinformation and lies pour from politicians’ mouths. Even a bus drove around claiming the UK could give millions to the NHS instead of “spending it” on the EU. It was shocking. No one seemed informed. The campaign was based on feelings, not facts. It was meant to provoke, not to enlighten. It was shameful.

This was 2016. And in the accelerated pace of the 21st century, we were still “ignorant” about the manipulative power of social media. Cookies were still something we ate with tea—not digital tools tracking our every move.

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This work comes from that time—when I decided to show the world, from the comfort of my home, what I had witnessed. Well, I did take all the photos myself, so I was actually there. There’s a bit of truth in it. I’m not working in some faraway “farm” where unemployed youth act as social media trolls.
[“This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality,” Peter Pomerantsev.]

We have created the reality we live in.

Yes, scams are as old as Homo sapiens.

But this level of manipulation—without consequences for those who lie, who are paid by the very citizens they deceive—is something I had never seen before.

The exhibitions that followed were wonderful—so well received in all these places. I only have a few copies left.
If you’d like one, join the waiting list—
and you just might get lucky.