Jessica Inez Backsell

Jessica Inez Backsell is a postdoc scholar studying the role of facts and values in ‘post truth’ society. She is currently working on a forthcoming book with Sternberg/MIT Press and was recently awarded a Wallander scholarship. Jessica looks at how practices that produce contestation can be mobilised to perform outcomes, focussing on the role such practices play in the domain of politics and markets. 

In her dissertation Jessica looked at the art market and the practices that upholds the mystification of goods traded in the market. She classifies these practices as rational manipulations - or magic. Magic in this case being a form of ‘truth distortion’ that capitalises on practices that simultaneously withdraws and presents ‘evidence’ and thus creates open secrets - things that are known but cannot be spoken of. 

Building on this account, Jessica now engages in debates concerning the philosophy of science and more specifically practice oriented philosophy. Contending that various practices may have the ability to twist our relationship to the idea of truths and non-truths, she explores the contrast between facts and values in modern thought and how artistic ontologies can formulate alternative approaches to reliable knowledge amidst current nihilistic times.