Cognitive Dissonance. The motivating force of culture. The growing pains of the mind. The point where reality dissents against idea.
It is the most dangerous power of human society. Saints were declared heretics, prophets were deemed lunatics, idealists were tortured, and scientists were murdered because of it. The most powerful artists were its instruments.
Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation.
-Oscar Wilde
Cognitive Dissonance Productions was founded on the belief that no concept nor belief should go unchallenged. In an era of rote political partisanship and status quo artistry, challenging voices are few and dampened by the inertia of the surrounding culture.
The founders of Cognitive Dissonance Productions dare to believe it could be otherwise. We may find ourselves to be fresh voices that awaken a primordial life in our culture. Or we may simply manage to sweep away some cobwebs and let in a little fresh air.
To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
-e e cummings
Our mission is to develop and encourage the development of significant and relevant art that challenges the surrounding culture of complacency, in either its artistic conventions, its beliefs, or both. We seek to develop work that is entertaining or engaging at its surface and yet demands further inquiry. Work that educates its audience as much as its audience informs it. A body of work that is artistically, philosophically, politically, and morally consequential.
Rather than indulge our society's shortsighted consumer attitude and create pop art that passes through the country like a virus for a season, we seek to create art that will continue to be viewed and appreciated for the next twenty years and beyond.