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Kill your television

By RAPHAEL LUCKOM

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First it was your mom, and then it was your significant other. Now, Yale art historian David Joselit is here to tell you to turn off the damn TV and go outside. On March 19th, the author of Feedback—Television Against Democracy comes to MIT for a dialogue with MIT professor Caroline A. Jones about the social and political implications of the boob tube.

"One of the most broadly reaching public spheres is television," says Joselit, "which seems democratic but is actually very narrowly controlled. The book tries to think about a variety of strategies artists and activists can use to enter into that public space." One of these techniques, called the "avatar," is especially relevant this election season, since it describes the idea of a television personality. "On television," he says, "there's a sense in which the image becomes the truth, and the image doesn't lie. No degree of speechwriting or spinning can change that."

While Feedback focuses mainly on the '60s and '70s, it's also meant as a guide for what's to come. "If you look at what people were saying about television in the '60s and '70s, it's much like what people were saying about the internet in the '90s; that it was a two-way media system, that it would democratize the media and everyone could be a producer."

FEEDBACK

TELEVISION AGAINST DEMOCRACY

WED. 3.19

LIST VISUAL ARTS CENTER

WIESNER BUILDING, E-15

20 AMES ST.

CAMBRIDGE

7PM/FREE

LISTART.MIT.EDU