Artists

Paper Tiger Television

Press release

Opening event: Thursday 29 January, 6–9pm.

It’s 8:30. Do you know where your brains are? is the first exhibition in the UK to present the work of Paper Tiger Television (PTTV), a US-based video production and distribution collective. Over four decades of critical and creative activity, they made nearly 400 programmes for the public access channels of cable television, presented hundreds of workshops and trained countless video-makers. Founded in 1981, a conjunction in which residual political energies and optimism from the 1960s combined with an enthusiasm for newly available video technologies, PTTV critiqued corporate control of the communications industry and provided a radical alternative to it. Due to franchise agreements made with local municipalities, which ensured that most cable systems in the United States had a few public access channels, PTTV enacted its ideological critique on television itself. The exhibition will feature around 40 programmes from across the decades of PTTV activity, many of which have rarely been seen since they were first broadcast, as well as visual and graphic items used in production, archival material and various publications. An extensive series of talks and events will also revisit important programmes, bringing out different aspects of PTTV’s work.

In the early days of PTTV, a moment of extreme disillusionment with network television in the United States, the collective made one programme a week. These mostly live performances would be aired on the same prime-time slot – ensuring consistency and generating a sense of spontaneity – before being shown in other screening contexts, including galleries and college classrooms. Each one begins with the question ‘It’s 8:30. Do you know where your brains are?’ and ends with a disclosure of its (minimal) budget. Most programmes from this period of production involved a commentator – often artists, activists, theorists and political scientists – presenting a critical reading of a specific ‘text’, whether a journal, newspaper or film. For example, Donna Haraway Reads The National Geographic on Primates (1987) and Myrna Bain Reads Ebony: Put Your Money Where Your Soul Is (1983). As well as critiquing various images, tropes, articles and adverts within the text, they frequently interrogated the mass corporations and media conglomerates that produced them, revealing corporate interests and hidden political agendas. Extending beyond the publication itself, PTTV’s readings would also investigate the target publication’s board of directors, its readerships and the products they consume. However, unlike other performances of knowledge, which can result in dry or virtuoso demonstrations of expertise, the majority of PTTV programmes were irreverent, funny and full of joy. Joan Braderman’s Joan Does Dynasty (1985) – described as ‘the classic feminist performance video of the era’ by Yvonne Rainer – is a case in point, as is Judith Williamson Consumes Passionately in Southern California(1987). These programmes entertain and instruct, in equal measure.

In artistic terms, PTTV developed in the aftermath of conceptual art and experimental film but, at the same time, marked a clear departure from them, both in terms of its homemade feel and use of DIY strategies. In this sense, PTTV shared much more with punk and early video art. The programmes were also designed as fun and easily replicable models, to encourage people to make their own programmes while this unique experiment in democratic media was available. PTTV utilised handmade elements, many of which will be on display in this exhibition, including ‘credit cards’ written in felt tip, collages, painted backdrops on cloth, and hand-operated ‘crankees’ for the programme’s credits. While much of these decisions were economically determined, they were also part of a broader artistic strategy. As Martha Gever has argued, ‘the overt style of Paper Tiger’s design reinforces its purpose – to reveal, not conceal, the working of media production. The flat sets, punkish graphics, and the cost-breakdown given at the close of each show implicitly expose invisible, finely-tuned methods of media seduction. This is Brecht’s “alienation effect” applied to television…’ In the hands of PTTV, the combination of detailed theoretical analysis and eye-catching strategies functioned to expose social relations and inequalities.

Underpinned by political activism, PTTV’s work was often connected with, and reported on, grassroots campaigns and interventions. One good example of this is Richie Perez Watches Fort Apache: The Bronx (1983), an in-depth look at the community-led campaign to counteract the racist depictions of Puerto Rican and Black people in Daniel Petrie’s 1981 film. As the decades went on, the format of PTTV’s work shifted, with less programmes producing readings of single texts and many becoming closer to documentary in their form. Nevertheless, the political commitment and experimental ethos remained the same. One key series in PTTV’s history – The Gulf Crisis TV Project from 1991 – was a collaboration with Deep Dish that examined the impact of the United States-led allied war with Iraq. Other programmes, such as Sisterhood™: Hyping the Female Market (1993) and Market This!: Queer Radicals Respond to Gay Assimilation (2003), offer critical takes on co-option, exploitation and marketisation. Other programmes highlight various radical political projects. This exhibition will present these fascinating and lesser-known programmes alongside iconic works like Herb Schiller’s critical readings of the New York Times. Other highlights include Renee Tajima Reads Asian Images in American Films: Charlie Chan Go Home! (1984), a video that analyses images of Asian women in Hollywood productions; Archie Singham Reads Foreign Policy: A Look at the Old Boys’ Network (1983), a programme that argues that a monopoly on political affairs have fostered ‘a society fixated on the machinations of war rather than the possibilities of peace’; and Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1982), a live performance deconstructing the messages in the eponymous fashion magazine and its advertising.