news | Monday April 2, 2012

Monodrama!

Word is that MoMA PS1 and Creative Time are working with MTV to resurrect “Art Breaks,” the bite-size video art nuggets that used to air during commercial breaks on the cable network.

Stan Douglas’ Monodramas, ten 30- to 60-second videos from 1991, conceived as interventions into commercial television, interrupted the usual flow of advertising and entertainment when broadcast nightly in British Columbia for three weeks in 1992. These micronarratives mimic televisions editing techniques, but as kernels of a story they refuse to cohere. They are tales of dysfunction and dislocation, misanthropy and misunderstanding. When the videos were aired unannounced during commercial breaks, viewers called the station to inquire about what was being sold, their responses evincing how the media can refocus attention from content to consumption.