Description

What if a lie is told to reveal some underlying truth? Are feelings that seem inappropriate, such as hysteria following the death of a celebrity, any less true than the grief we feel over the death of a loved one? Even if the plot of an opera seems preposterous, can’t it still express emotions that ring true with the audience?

At the heart of this fascinating and iconoclastic book lies Werner Herzog’s concept of ‘ecstatic truth’ – a truth that is often hidden behind the facts and our conceptions of reality but can be gleaned through the poetic imagination, in art, literature and cinema, when we open ourselves up to an aesthetic experience.

Written in Herzog’s inimitable style, these stories, anecdotes and reflections take us from present-day deep fakes and the opportunities and perils of AI to ancient Egypt and Rome, where rulers resorted to lies and propaganda in the same way as governments do today; from Scott and Amundsen’s race to the South Pole to alien abduction claims and the making of Herzog’s own films.

With its singular vision and unique voice, The Future of Truth is a compelling meditation on the relationship between fact and fiction – evidence and imagination – by one of today’s most fascinating and idiosyncratic thinkers.

Publisher Review

Like the strange, enchanting films for which he is best known, Herzog’s seventh book defies the usual conventions of structure, narrative arc and the delineation of fact from fiction, even as it addresses the very subject of truth … It’s like listening to a fireside monologue from an entertaining uncle … Compelling … A collection of uniquely Herzogian mindfarts … Absurd, profound or an ecstatically truthful mix of the two — Farrah Jarral * Guardian * As we gingerly pick our way through the newly troubling realm of what we see and read, and wonder what artificial intelligence might have in store for us, the German filmmaker Werner Herzog might be the perfect guide … In The Future of Truth he shares field notes of his encounters with truth and its increasingly convincing simulacra, from deep fakes to wholly fabricated personalities, living full if fictive lives in cyber space * Financial Times * [A] typically eccentric meditation on truth: what it is, what it means, and how it relates to art. … It’s all poetic and thoughtful * Empire * ** PRAISE FOR WERNER HERZOG AND HIS PREVIOUS BOOKS **

Herzog is in a category of one. You can’t believe that a person like this stalks the earth. A complete original — Marina Hyde Visionary * New Statesman * Herzog really is a kind of genius * Spectator * A singular poet * Big Issue * Werner Herzog has always seemed to be something more than human * Irish Times * Michael Hofmann’s sparkling and inventive translation from the original German…somehow makes Herzog more Herzog in tone * Guardian *