Richard Zeid
Tangled Web
NFS
"Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive" refers to how complicated life becomes when people start lying, and even blindly believing in something. Tangled Web is a statement on religion and truth, and how people often just blindly follow. Growing up Jewish, I was taught the beliefs in our bible, and for the most part believed what I was taught through my religious studies. As I grew older, I began to ask questions and was told simply "That is just the way it is," a very unsatisfying answer to the questions asked. I started to become aware of how many just blindly follow without question, thus a sort of deception, building on beliefs, and often out of date traditions creating that tangled web.
The piece is a Jewish book of prayers. Each page's words were cut from the page and sliced into strips and then reassembled. The first page is simple, but as pages overlay each other the tangle of the web gets deeper and more complicated. The yellow page marker represents a place within the web, could be very close to the surface or buried deep in the book showing a level of truthfulness depending on how deeply it lies.