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Video is Television?

Antonio Muntadas

1989 00:04:00 United StatesEnglishColorMono4:3Video

Description

Playing back "visual quotations" of everything from Poltergeist to Blade Runner, Muntadas rescans the surface of the monitor, questioning the "nature" of media—film, television, video, and image. Television emerges as the medium to eat all mediums, raising the question: Is it possible,within the context of television, to tell art from life or fact from fiction? An endless row of generic TV monitors visually evokes a hall of mirrors as the expression of the cultural homogeneity and bland abundance achieved through the dominant medium of the late 20th century. Music composed by Glenn Branca.

Antoni Muntadas was born in Barcelona in 1942, and has lived in New York since 1971. His work addresses social, political and communications issues, and the relationship between public and private space within social frameworks, as well as channels of information and the ways they may be used to censor central information or promulgate ideas. He works on projects in different media such as photography, video, publications, Internet and multi-media installations. Since 1995, Muntadas has grouped together a set of works and projects titled On Translation emphasizing issues of interpretation, transcription and cultural translation. Their content, dimensions and materials are variable, and focus on the author’s personal experience and artistic activity in numerous countries over forty years.

Also see:
Antoni Muntadas: Video Portrait