How can we harness collaborative culture, critical analysis, participatory technologies and aesthetics to incite social change?  What content and platforms can we create that will respond to the limits and possibilities of the ever-shifting contemporary media landscape?

Paper Tiger Television puts theory into practice — participants of the conference are challenged to collaboratively design prototypes for a new rrradical media, building on the ideals of non-hierarchical-participatory culture, critical analysis, activism and innovative aesthetics. A broad cross section of individuals, working together with varied proclivities, interests and abilities, opens up the potential for something truly revolutionary to develop.

Media Intensive: 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Succinct, fast-paced and provocative presentations on key topics of the design challenge: Justice & Autonomy, New Activism & Movement Building, Collectivism & Collaborative Culture, Materiality & Aesthetics

Lunch: 12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Presenters and grassroots media advocates host informal discussions dedicated to conference themes.

Design Challenge: 1:00 – 4:30 p.m.
Groups of 8-10 participants will be challenged to collectively create prototypes for a new form of rrradical media.

Team Presentations: 4:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Each group gives 10 minutes to present their rrradical media prototype. Selected prototypes will be featured in Documentary Fortnight 2012: MoMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film and Media on February 24.

Media Studies Speakers
Jesse Drew, professor, Techno-cultural Studies, University of California, Davis
Pablillo Jose, hacktivist
Shannon Mattern, assistant professor, School of Media Studies, The New School
Martha Wallner, Media & Communications Coordinator, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Isaac Wilder, Executive Director, Free Network Foundation

Design Challenge Facilitators
Robby Herbst, artist
Tracy Luz, documentary filmmaker
Deep Dish TV, media laboratory since 1986

Democracy Now!, national, daily, independent, and award winning global news program
Housing Is A Human Right, documentary project
Manhattan Neighborhood Network, public access network
Media Action Grassroots Network, local-to-local advocacy network of grassroots community organizations
People’s Production House, journalism training and production institute

Follow the links to detailed event description and DAY ONE schedule.

* Presented by Paper Tiger Television, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and School of Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement , on occasion of the Vera List Center’s 2011-2013 focus theme “Thingness.”

Posted on January 23, 2012

“The power of mass culture rests on the trust of the public. This legitimacy is a paper tiger.”
–PTTV Manifesto

Borne of the residual political optimism from the sixties and a flush of infatuation with small-format video, Paper Tiger Television (PTTV) began as a series on Communications Update on public access. Featuring Herb Schiller tearing apart the New York Times’ “all the news that is fit to print,” Paper Tiger’s penetrating and playful critiques of Time, Rolling Stone, National Geographicand Cosmopolitan soon followed.

The public access movement took root at a moment of disillusionment with network television, generating hope that cable would offer a genuine alternative to TV wasteland. Over the last thirty years, the accessibility of public access TV centers has significantly declined, while for-profit corporate media consolidated from fifty into five companies that control 90% of the public’s media consumption.

Yet, with the growth of the internet and the proliferation of consumer grade production equipment, social media, crowd sourcing, online video, live streaming, and wireless technology, today’s media environment is rife with opportunities for innovation and collaboration.  Still, from the digital divide, to online filter bubbles, to the echo chamber of social distribution of mass media, to SOPA and Net Neutrality, an analysis of how these developments are used coupled with the threats coming from the policy level reveals that even these seemingly promising trends are nuanced.

Given these developments, what does a vibrant, radical media look like, how could it function? What lessons can we apply from Paper Tiger’s innovative media activism?  How can we use media strategically and creatively in the pursuit of social justice?

Moderated by Daniela Capistrano, Multi-Platform Producer of DCAP Media, the festive event features a keynote address, a screening of Paper Tiger Television’s Greatest Hits, selected by current Tigers, followed by a panel discussion on the future of rrradical media.

Keynote Speaker
Malkia Cyril, Executive Director, Center for Media Justice

Panelist
Andy Bichlbaum, The Yes Lab
Jamilah King, News Editor, Colorlines
Jennifer Pozner, Founder, Women in Media & News

Follow the links to detailed event description and DAY TWO schedule.

* Presented by Paper Tiger Television, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the School of Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement , on occasion of the Vera List Center’s 2011-2013 focus theme “Thingness.”

Posted on January 23, 2012

What is radical media? What has it been in the past? What can it be in the future? What is media’s relationship to social justice and movement building?

Paper Tiger Television, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the School of Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement present a two-day conference of activists, artists and media makers to celebrate, reflect and build on thirty roarin’ years (and counting!) of media art and activism.

In 1981, Paper Tiger Television (PTTV) pioneered a truly radical public access show, raising awareness amongst workers in the communication industries of the economic, political and social power structures perpetuated through the profit-driven mainstream media. Ever since then, the collective has been making fun, yet incisive video that demystifies the information industry and provides a platform for underrepresented perspectives. Collaborating with activists and artists, PTTV videos take many forms — from critical performative readings of the mass media & popular culture, to traditional style documentaries on social justice issues.

Thirty years later, how can we harness collaborative culture, critical analysis, participatory technologies and aesthetics to incite social change?  What content and platforms can we create that will respond to the limits and possibilities of the ever-shifting contemporary media landscape?

We invite artists, activists, scholars and media makers, movers and shakers of all stripes to explore these questions. Participants are challenged to collaboratively design prototypes for a new rrradical media, building on the ideals of non-hierarchical-participatory culture, critical analysis, activism and innovative aesthetics. A broad cross section of individuals, working together with varied proclivities, interests and abilities, opens up the potential for something truly revolutionary to develop.

Follow the links to detailed event schedules: DAY ONE and DAY TWO.

*Presented by Paper Tiger Television, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the School of Media Studies at The New School for Public Engagement, on occasion of the Vera List Center’s 2011-2013 focus theme “Thingness.”

Posted on December 8, 2011

Coney Island USA and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School present a roundtable discussion focusing on how artists and art organizations have taken lead roles in the economic redevelopment of New York City and other urban centers. Leaders of local arts organizations from the Bronx, Coney Island, Gowanus, and the Lower East Side discuss how small business creation and community outreach contribute to economic development.

Arts organizations have long been identified as ideal partners for redeveloping neighborhoods seeking interim plans, due to their ability to draw crowds, activate storefronts, and launch activities in a relatively fast-paced manner. Concerned community leaders and local arts organizers consider how the arts have transformed their communities, and how these transformation yield new ways of  government and arts organization partnerships for economic redevelopment and neighborhood preservation in New York City and nationwide.

Moderated by Kevin McQueen, Assistant Director, Community Development Finance Lab, Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy.

Posted on April 28, 2011

A new initiative co-organized with the School of Art, Media, and Technology and the Fine Arts Program Parsons, this lecture series captures the increasingly trans-disciplinary nature of scientific, academic, artistic and cultural practices and, in particular, focuses on the complex cross-disciplinary settings for art’s production in contemporary life.

Artist Mel Chin discusses the philosophical and conceptual development of selected works, in relation to the notion of sustainability. For more than three decades, Chin has been developing a unique and socially engaged body of work in which cultural diversity and global solidarity played an important role. His project Revival Field, perhaps his most well-known work, has made him one of the most important pioneers of ecological art. His works have been defined “sculptural witnesses to ecological and political tragedies.” Whether examining American imperialism in Central America, September 11, the fate of the Native American Indians, civil wars in postcolonial Africa, abuse at Guantanamo Bay, the extinction of animal species, or the way in which people pollute the natural world, Chin’s practice creates an arena in which social and (geo)political activism are coupled with ideas from philosophy, biology, history, religion, anthropology, literature, and alchemy. Chin received a BA from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1975, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1988 and 1990. He lives in North Carolina.

Posted on November 22, 2010

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In the United States, the AIDS crisis is now almost completely within the control of public health management systems. Through global NGOs, we have exported our programs for managing this epidemic, along with US public health ideologies that downplay or avoid politically sensitive concerns with sexual rights (such as the rights of commercial sex workers), harm reduction (such as drug legalization and needle exchange), and the oppression of racial and sexual minorities (in the form of multi-generational poverty, incarceration). Increasing infection rates among poor women, rural populations, and young men of color who have sex with men and the inability of many around the world to access affordable, life-saving treatments remind us that social violence and structural inequalities are not resolved by the efficient management of the epidemic.

As long as this global health structure remains in place, the AIDS crisis is always still beginning. Film screening of Jean Carlomusto’s award-winning film Sex Is An Epidemic (2010), followed by an open discussion on how to organize against the AIDS crisis.

Posted on October 28, 2010

The sound-art collective Ultra-red is concerned with the intersection of sound and politics. Collective listening procedures serve as foundation of their exhibition Vogue’ology (at Parsons’ Aronson Gallery, November 17 through 30) which examines the possibilities for establishing an archive of the House/Ballroom community. These procedures have been deployed by the exhibition’s curatorial and archive teams to process and select fragments and phrases from House/Ballroom oral histories and vogue descriptions for the exhibition. Their interpretation will be further provoked and utilized to encourage visitors to move through the exhibition space. On occasion of Vogue’olgy, members of Ultra-red consider this intersection of sound and politics in a public event with artists, union organizers, historians and representatives of Ballroom ministries. The audience is invited to engage with sound as an object of reflection and with listening as a means of political organizing.

* Presented on occasion of the Vera List Center’s 2009/2011 focus theme “Speculating on Change.”

Posted on October 26, 2010

Vogue’ology contains seemingly incompatible elements: aesthetic experience and political activism; community events and forensic research; public manifestations and private workshops. The exhibition is a joint project between the Ballroom Archive & Oral History Project and the sound art collective Ultra-red. Central to the collaboration is a shared interest in developing terms that can serve to organize the Ballroom Archive, a community-initiated effort to gather histories of the House|Ballroom scene.

The House|Ballroom scene emerged in New York City in the first half of the last century and is today found in cities across the United States. Members of the scene have organized themselves into houses, such as the House of Ebony, the House of Evisu, and the House of Garçon, which function as intentional communities and artistic collectives. Houses sponsor Balls: large events at which members compete in multiple performance categories. For generations of transgender, bisexual, lesbian and gay primarily Latino and African American men and women, the Balls have provoked radical explorations of style, identity and social inequality. Vogue, the community’s signature performance form originally inspired by poses in Vogue magazine, enacts an analysis of normative gender, class and racial identities.

Rather than exhibiting the archive or attempting to represent the House|Ballroom scene itself, Vogue’ology investigates the processes and goals of archiving as they pertain to the specific characteristics and conditions of the House|Ballroom scene. Its structure and aesthetic elements amplify the resonances between the vocabularies of both archive and Balls, particularly their common interest in protocol, category, disassembly, and recombination.

Curators
Arbert Santana Evisu, member, House of Evisu
Carin Kuoni, Vera List Center for Art and Politics
Robert Sember, member, Ultra-red sound art collective, Vera List Center 2009-2010 Fellow

* * *

The exhibition is accompanied by a series of free public programs:

EXHIBITION OPENING CELEBRATION
Thursday, November 18, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m

PANEL DISCUSSION
Organized Listening: Sound Art, Collectivity and Politics
Thursday, November 18, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor

Participants include Edgar Riviera Colon and Rev. Jamaul Roots from Ballroom Ministries; human rights advocate and musician Karen Hakobian; artist Paige Sarlin of 16 Beaver; musician, writer and curator Alex Waterman of Plus Minus Ensemble and Either/Or Ensemble.

Facilitators: Dont Rhine and Robert Sember

LISTENING SESSIONS
Monday, November 29, 2010, 6:00 – 8:30 p.m.

Gallery visitors are encouraged to interact with the exhibition and share their responses in writing, at the gallery or via email (info@ultra-red.org). In addition, the artists are facilitating a public listening session in the gallery, to consider collectively the intersection of object and analysis, and to evaluate and debate the political consequences and possibilities of recording history.

PANEL DISCUSSION
Living the Fight: AIDS Activism
Tuesday, November 30, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
The New School, Michael Klein Room
66 West 12th Street, 5th floor

With Lolisa Gibson, Johnny Guaylupo, Charles Long, and Pedro Julio Serrano

Sponsored by Health Education, Global Studies, Department of Natural Sciences and Math/ Interdisciplinary Science at Lang, Campus Queer Collective, Parsons Diversity Initiative, Lang’s Ethnicity and Race Program, Office of Intercultural Support, VDay@New School, The New You, Association for International Development, and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics

FILM SCREENING
Sex In An Epidemic
Wednesday, December 1, 2010, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
The New School, Theresa Lang Community and Student Center
55 West 13th Street, 2nd floor

Screening of Jean Carlomusto’s award-winning film Sex In An Epidemic (2010), followed by a conversation with Arbert Santana Evisu, Kevin Trimell Jones, Black LGBT Archivists Society of Philadelphia, and Robert Sember

Posted on June 8, 2010