Guangze Zhou
Life on Venus: Truth & Fiction explored through the method of Spatial Comics

MRes

Summary
Additional Info
Research question
Overview of Research insights

Life on Venus
1 About the thesis
2 About the Exhibition
3. About Exhibits (Transitional objects)

Summary

For a variety of reasons, the pursuit of truth is challenging. How can we get specific enough to explore such a broad topic? One thing is clear: Directly answering a question is actually quite difficult, alternative methods offer a way to approach the question from different perspectives.

Considering the difficulty of pursuing truth, gathering evidence often represents the initial and most tangible step in that process. I aim to develop a methodology—my own language of truth—using fiction to playfully approach truth. Therefore, a background story has gradually taken shape:

Since the 1970s, an urban legend about life on Venus and the alien “Voyager” has been circulated around the world.

The existence of this legend is regarded as classified. My practice, however, focuses on creating evidence to substantiate that it is indeed real. In this worldbuilding, ways of pursuing truth include, but are not limited to, creating fictional archives, forging biological models, designing alien costumes, altering historical photographs, and other such methods. To some extent, I am playing the role of The Unreliable Narrator.

This project uses spatial experience design—understood here as spatial comics—to create a container for these pieces of evidence to answer questions. I have designed an exhibition called “Life on Venus”, where, through role-playing, researchers, together with the audience, investigate the life forms on Venus and seek evidence for the existence of “Voyager”. In other words, this carefully designed, guiding space is trying to recreate the invention of lying. The research offers a contribution to different perspectives on hard questions through its mixed methodology and insights.

In addition to the Real Documents that authorized personnel are supposed to read, several Fictional Files (referred to as ‘MRes thesis’) have been created to prevent the leak of knowledge about extraterrestrial life. Any non-authorized personnel accessing these files will face serious charges.

Additional info

THE FOLLOWING FILES HAVE BEEN CLASSIFIED

TOP SECRET

BY ORDER OF THE SOVIET UNION & THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT

If you believe you are an authorized personnel, please contact the author

Research question

This project explores whether the combination of fictional archives and spatial comics can generate a more accessible fictional behavior, helping audiences understand and explore the blurred line between fiction and truth, particularly prompting them to think critically about their relationship. More specifically, the research asks, as a form of spatial experienced art, what elements of spatial comics prompt a kind of rethinking the line between truth and fiction? As an unreliable narrator, how can I influence the audience’s understanding of fictional narratives? All of this requires practice to draw conclusions.

The following examples list possible effects:

1 Fiction brings us closer to the absolute truth.

Within the container of spatial comics, it blurs the boundaries between truth and fiction. In the post-truth era, the traditional concept of truth is challenged, people in today’s society can easily ignore the truth with the help of one fiction after another. Through the Research of Venus Life forms, an obvious, cartoon-like exhibition design, this study aims to reveal how to use fiction to question and reshape our understanding of “reality”.

2 The practical application of spatial comics in the narrative side.

In this article, I use fictional practices such as magicians, detective stories...to explore other artists' creative strategies for the theme of truth. My research borrows their theories and creates my own methodology, combining comics and archives to form a real-world spatial container, which I call spatial comics (Exhibits are called transitional objects). The new field of inter-media art, spatial comics, is born in the mix of comics and spatially experienced design. Previous research ignored the narrative nature of comics, or in other words, did not focus on this aspect. My research fills this gap and further expands the theory in a worldbuilding, or narrative space, composed of fake artworks, or in other words, three-dimensional forms (shaped in reality) that are different from traditional comics.

3 Explore how to answer broad questions in a more accessible way.

I hope that my research, through the combination of different methods, can view the world from a higher-dimensional perspective, considering different angles, logics, and new methods of understanding and validation. Therefore, my definition of spatial comics is not limited to truth and fiction, but a kind of spatial experience art that combines the narrative and performativity of comics with the criticality and curatorial nature of archives.

Overview of Research insights

Stage	Development of the research insights
Continuously	The research runs throughout the entire year of the MRes, becoming increasingly in-depth as the study progresses and practical outputs develop, and supported by continuous feedback from tutors.
Stage 1 Preliminary Studies	During the EAP course, I authored a concept writing titled “Love to Lie—The Truth Redemption”, based on my research proposal submitted before admission. It explores the reasons why people need deception in the post-truth era. Furthermore, the study of war magicians and detective stories provides a theoretical basis for the methodology, studying the role of fictional behavior in artistic practice.
Stage 2 Fictioning of Reality	This stage primarily explores how the Fictioning of Reality as a method can be integrated with my artistic practice. It further examines the relationship between fictional narratives and unreliable narrators, and incorporates the concept of the archives turn into my methodology through multiple case studies, establishing a foundation for the subsequent practice of combining comics and archives. In addition, the elective courses of worldbuilding and making pedagogies provided a lot of theoretical learning and practical opportunities for this study, providing a multi-dimensional perspective for my practice.
Stage 3 Spatial Comics	This stage is the core focus of this research, introducing the influence of comics on fictional practice—specifically, their performativity and narrative nature—into my methodology. Additionally, it transforms my thesis into an experimental form of visual novel, blending academic research with creative storytelling.
Stage 5 Life on Venus	The outcome of this research is an exhibition that combines the performativity and narrative nature of comics to explore the blurred boundary between truth and fiction. By studying fictional exhibition cases, I introduced the concept of transitional objects and engaged with audiences through role-playing performances. This approach aims to prompt visitors to reflect on whether there is value in the blurred divide between truth and fiction in the post-truth era.

The above text is taken from the thesis introduction for Life on Venus: Truth & Fiction explored through the method of Spatial Comics. Further excerpts or access to the full text are available upon request to the author (contact details at the top of this page).