Bår Stenvik

Bluff

Cheating and deception are not considered our most noble skills, but without them we would hardly be human. No matter how sophisticated and enlightened we become, we keep agonizing over whether we are experiencing "true love" and are in touch with our "true selves".
Can a forgery be real art? How do you recognize a liar? What is honest in war and politics? Bluff examines what we consider true and false, and why we are so busy keeping them apart. A constant yearning for realness and authenticity echoes throughout our culture, advertising, politics and identity struggles, creating ever-expanding markets for new bluffs. What is real, what is fake and artificial? How does trust work? Can true love be faked? Why are we so fascinated by deception?
Bår Stenvik reviews immediate and ancient history, visits a defense research institute and attends seduction classes, interviews art historians and neuroscientists, and ties it all together into an entertaining story about what repels, fascinates, and defines us: lies, deceit, and self-deception.