Like many artists of her generation, Jenny Holzer has used language and strategies of the mass media in her work. In the late 1970s, while still an art student, she began creating works composed of aphorisms or one-liners which play on commonly held truths and clichés. Initially, her Truisms were printed on posters, stickers, and t-shirts. Later, Holzer started using electronic displays. In 1982, she blazed these messages across a giant advertising hoarding in Times Square, New York. The truisms are deliberately challenging, presenting a spectrum of often-contradictory opinions. Holzer hoped they would sharpen people’s awareness of the “usual baloney they are fed” in daily life.