Page 181 - The 60.Venice Biennial & MoMA issue of WOA Contemporary Art magazine

our politics, spreading disinformation, documentation,
evidence, and fervor. We see video as a tool of persuasion
and propaganda, but also as a means of witnessing and
resistance. The artists in Signals explore the dizzying rise
and range of video, but also present trenchant critiques of
these formats and technologies.”

Amar Kanwar. The Torn First Pages (partial installation view). 2004–2008.
Nineteen-channel standard-definition video (black and white and color, sound
and silent; varying durations), nineteen sheets of paper, three metal frames,
books, magazines, and artist books. Dimensions variable. The Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Acquired through the generosity of The Estate of Byron R. Meyer,
Kiran Nadar, and The Contemporary Arts Council. © 2022 Amar Kanwar. Photo:
Tom Powel Imaging

Ming Wong. Windows on the World (Part 2). 2014. Twenty-four-channel standard-
definition video (color, sound; varying durations), twenty-four flat screen monitors,
MDF, wood, and steel, overall dimensions approx. 65 x 157 1/2 x 30” (165 ×
400 × 75 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fund for the Twenty-First
Century. © 2022 Ming Wong

Dara Birnbaum. Tiananmen Square: Break-In Transmission. 1990. Five-channel
color video, four-channels of stereo sound, surveillance switcher, and custom-
designed support system, dimensions variable. Installation view: Dara Birnbaum,
Marian Goodman Gallery, London, November 8, 2018–January 12, 2019. © 2022
Dara Birnbaum. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
Installation view of Signals: How Video Transformed the World, on view at The
Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Robert Gerhardt
questions about the singular impact that electronic media
have had on participatory democracy, identity politics,
economic access, and technological power. Collectively,
the works and artists in the exhibition confront the ways in
which the physical world has merged with the virtual, and
reveal a history that is global, critical, and activist from its
very beginnings.

“Video became widely accessible as a consumer
technology in the 1960s, but it also became subject to total
commercial and governmental control in nations around
the globe,” said Michelle Kuo. She continued, “Today,
vastly accelerated by the pandemic, video is ever-present
Installation view of Signals: How Video Transformed the World, on view at The
- on phones, on computer screens, shaping our ideas and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Photo: Robert Gerhardt

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