TRUTH PERFORMED ; TRUTH DISRUPT

TRUTH PERFORMED / TRUTH DISRUPTED is an unfinished poetic video essay by Parham Ghalamdar and Dr Lone Sorensen. It was planned as a 12-minute work, but was intentionally abandoned halfway through at 05:35, so what exists is a partial cut rather than a finished argument.

In the piece, two synthetic voices move through a tight Q and A exchange, using archival footage, AI images, and broadcast-media fragments to track how “truth” gets staged and felt under populism. The film treats political authority as a performed effect: bodies, emotion, spectacle, and platform algorithms producing what audiences accept as real. It sits inside a “Climate Futures” research context by looking at the media conditions that shape climate belief and denial, instead of offering climate solutions or future scenarios. The missing second half would have shifted from disruption toward revelation, care, and future imaginaries, and the absence is framed as part of the work.

The project was developed through Leeds Creative Labs, an interdisciplinary programme run by the Cultural Institute. Leeds Creative Labs pairs artists with researchers to support open-ended collaboration and experimentation, without requiring a fixed outcome or final product. This edition was themed Climate Futures and delivered in partnership with the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds, inviting participants to explore how climate change intersects with culture, politics, communication, and public life, beyond scientific or policy frames.