Truth or Dare: Art & Documentary

‘Truth or Dare: Art and Documentary’ was a conference and a set of screenings that took place during February 2006 at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and Tate Modern. This book is the outcome of that event, combining transcriptions of the talks and conversations, as well as several specially commissioned articles that complement its themes.

We called it ‘Truth or Dare’ because of the apparent clash between ‘authenticity’ or ‘realism’ that documentary has claim to and the association of the imagination and experimentation with art, particularly contemporary art. Our own experience as practitioners and writers encouraged us to question this binary and even the categories themselves.

Keywords: art of documentary practise, freedoms and accountabilites, documentary, history and reality, ethical differences