Reality

• Prize
• Photographer
  Luke Smith, United Kingdom
• Studio
  Luke Smith Photography
• Website
  http://lukesmithphotography.com

Nineteenth century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche,
spent the 1870’s deliberating the question of ‘what is truth?’
Nietzsche believed that truth cannot be recognized; stating that
everything that is knowable is an illusion. He declared knowing
always involves creating transference of meaning which people
associate with metaphors. The reason that all knowledge
involves metaphors is that knowing is supposed to be ‘adequate
expression of an object in the subject’. And since the ‘subject’
and the ‘object’, the ‘knower’ and the ‘known are imagined to
be radically independent of each other, knowing always
demands a ‘transfer’ or a ‘copy over’ from one sphere into the
other. This is seen as concept formation and it is these concepts
that construct our world and our reality. Nietzsche viewed this
concept as the creation of illusion meaning that there are no
absolutes.

I considered, through the creation of this image, the reality of
one’s world without metaphors to illustrate ones own reality
without illusions. Encasing the subject within their illusion,
reasserting and reaffirming that all is construction and myth.

I am currently studying a PhD in photography. My work is developed from research, and is constructed by means of created images with a suggestive narrative in response to a variety of issues shaped by our social, domestic, cultural and political environment.