Raindance's Media Primers reflect the group's theories of alternative television and video, and their engagement with mass media, pop culture and the counter-culture. The themes addressed — media manipulation, the camera's role in modifying individual behavior — illustrate their experimentation with the technological and conceptual underpinnings of 1/2-inch portable video. Merging alternative video and mass media, Ira Schneider's Media Primer juxtaposes cultural indicators — television commercials, news footage, and Portapak documentation of countercultural events such as the Altamount rock concert. In Shamberg's Media Primer, rhetoric and gestures are skewered as he examines the political structure of alternative media. Paul Ryan's Proto Media Primer includes scenes of Abbie Hoffman awaiting the verdict from the Chicago 7 trial and ironic man-on-the-street interviews.
-- EAI
This title is available for exhibitions, screenings, and institutional use through Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), NY. Please visit the EAI Online Catalogue for further information about this artist and work. The EAI site offers extensive resources for curators, students, artists and educators, including: an in-depth guide to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving media art; A Kinetic History: The EAI Archives Online, a collection of essays, primary documents, and media charting EAI's 40-year history and the early years of the emergent video art scene; and expanded contextual and educational materials.