Presidents and Elections
00:58:43
Collection: Curated Compilations
Tags: Consumer culture, History, Media Analysis, Politics, Television
The commodification of the American presidency is examined and lampooned in Presidents and Elections, a compilation of work from the Video Data Bank collection. Interweaving humorous, disquieting, and surreal videos with actual presidential campaign ads, the program highlights the evolving role of television as the driving force of electoral politics. Using appropriated media footage, parodic performance, historical reenactment, and other tactics, the artists represented in this program subvert and disrupt the inanity/insanity of dominant political discourse with their own forms of media manipulation.
Included Titles
A satire of the political television spot, Perfect Leader shows that ideology is the product and power is the payoff. The process of political imagemaking and the marketing of a candidate is revealed, as an omnipotent computer...
Collection: Single Titles Tags: politics, television, video history |
Appropriated network-TV footage of Jimmy Carter’s "I see risk" speech from the 1980 Democratic Convention meets Reagan’s gloomy inaugural ride through D.C.: "If you succumb to a dream world, you’ll wake up to a nightmare." This title is...
Collection: Single Titles Tags: chicago art, culture jamming, found footage, history, politics |
This tape grew out of my fascination with Ronald Reagan and his uncanny ability to demonstrate what I called the 'Signifiers of Americanism'. Through gesture and intonation, he seemed to suggest many of the virtues that Americans hold dear....
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: language, politics, video history |
In this faux-recreation of a home-shopping network, Al Gore and George W. Bush offer you a 'super-premium' collectible lamp commemorating the 2000 presidential election.
Collection: Single Titles Tags: found footage, humor, politics |
Baby Bush meets Tubby-land. Completed in August 2001, this project was initially just a simple comic skewering of George W. Bush and his defense policies—but after September 11th, it took on a whole new meaning. State of the Union now...
Collection: Single Titles Tags: culture jamming, found footage, humor, politics |
Antonio Muntadas and Marshall Reese have been documenting the selling of the American presidency since 1984, and have expanded and updated the series with every election. Political Advertisement 2000 features ads from the 1950s up to...
Collection: Single Titles Tags: activism, found footage, media analysis, politics, psa, tv production |
In this irreverent and hilarious videotape, renowned street performer Stoney Burke leads us on a subversive tour of the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston’s Astrodome. Burke disregards the traditional terms of “political debate”...
Collection: Single Titles Tags: documentary, humor, media analysis, politics |
Pirated satellite feeds revealing U.S. media personalities’ contempt for their viewers come full circle in Spin. TV out-takes appropriated from network satellite feeds unravel the tightly-spun fabric of television—a system that silences...
Collection: Single Titles Tags: holiday, media analysis, television |
Irreverent yet poignant, The Eternal Frame is a re-enactment of the assassination of John F. Kennedy as seen in the famous Zapruder film. This home movie was immediately confiscated by the FBI yet found its way into the visual...
Collection: Early Video Art, Single Titles Tags: activism, history, media analysis, performance, politics, video history |
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