Ján Mančuška
True Story
March 3 – April 9, 2005
True Story is a model for the notion that time is a constructed history. It draws from the concept of asynchrony, which defines time as a series of variables dependent on circumstances in which the individual, community, group, or nation is found. This concept rejects the idea that time passes similarly in all places: time passes differently for a suffering individual than for one experiencing pleasure.
In the exhibition space, three lines of action (sentences) span the distance between the walls. Each word is cut from one piece of aluminum, which is connected to the other words by a steel cable. The individual lines of action are taken from a specific situation and develop into a specific sequence of events, a “history”. They are installed at eye level so that they overlap as one reads the text. Therefore, the viewer can read the text either in a continuous line, or switch from one line to the next as they intersect. Through the various ways of reading True Story, the viewer is invited to experience the same moment in time at the same location from the perspectives of three different people.
The result is a hypertext, whose content always depends on the viewer’s specific decisions and reading direction.