Light Industry: Anthony Ramos - About Media
Tuesday, September 14, 2010, 19:30h, 7$
177 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Presented with Electronic Arts Intermix

EAI is pleased to present a special screening and conversation with pioneering media artist Anthony Ramos at Light Industry.

Ramos belonged to the first generation of artists who used video as a tool to critique mass media, give voice to marginalized individuals and communities, and produce radically new forms of cultural documentation, combining art and activism in a series of potent but now rarely seen works.

His 1977 video About Media is an astute deconstruction of television news, focusing on the media coverage of President Jimmy Carter's declaration of amnesty for Vietnam War draft evaders as well as an interview conducted by New York reporter Gabe Pressman about Ramos's own eighteen-month prison term for conscientious objection. Through repetition and juxtaposition, he contrasts the unedited interview footage—and patronizing comments of the news crew—with Pressman's final televised report. In his ironic manipulation of the material, Ramos exposes the illusion of "objective" television news.