Text-based art

The relationship between questions and answers

This piece of text-based art is an attempt to visualise the relationship between questions and answers, specifically the way in which the answers to questions are often dependent on the way that the question is put.

To give a simple example, the question “Was Picasso a great artist?” may elicit a different answer to the question “Do you agree that Picasso was a great artist?”. It’s all in the framing of the question. The structure of the question dictates the structure of the answer. It marshals people into different ways of thinking about the subject.

Some questions, such as “Does God exist?” or “Why do we exist?”, generate the need for answers even though it may be argued by some that these questions needn’t be asked in the first place on the philosophical principal that “Whatever is, is.”.

It’s all semiotics to me.