Stranger than Fiction at FACT presented a number works that reference sensory deprivation, the unearthing of memory, objects and history, where the audience is invited to build their own connections in confronting the void. All the artworks contributed to the wider themes of abstraction and storytelling.

Michael Bell-Smith (b. 1978, East Corinth) creates imagined or fabricated dream-spaces. His two painterly wall-mounted pieces for the Biennial 2008 entitled Glitter Grade (2007) and Glitter Bend (2008) each created feelings of inter-galactic travel, skimming over the surface of the earth or soaring over an electrified cityscape. The two pixilated landscapes were similar, but while Glitter Grade was composed of ordered rows, Glitter Bend was curved, suggesting a radical shift in scale. This simple bend, coupled with the minimal, reduced structures of both compositions, suggested how representation can be built from smaller abstract elements and formal gestures.