Artists Space

Teaching TV

September 28 – November 3, 1990

A national survey of recent videotapes promoting media literacy, produced by students in collaboration with media educators, artists and video-makers.

A black and white image of a group of children clustered in front of a store window.  On the right, the text "NO FRESH WORDS" overlays the image.
Film still from Teaching TV, Artists Space, 1990. [A black and white image of a group of children clustered in front of a store window. On the right, the text "NO FRESH WORDS" overlays the image.]

Teaching TV is a national survey of recent video work produced by secondary and primary school students working with media educators, artists and producers. The four one-hour complications represent recent developments in media education, in particular, how a variety of media projects and programs confront the students' experience of mass media in this culture.

Given the broad range of video projects included in the four programs, Teaching TV is intended to create a forum for exchange around questions raised by media and education. For example, how do the works produced -- and the programs they were produced within -- engage with mass media institutions, forms and products? Does the work emphasize critique or imitation? What are the larger goals of the work and the program? Does, for instance, the work encourage viewing skills on the part of both student producers and their intended audience?

Encouraged, in part, by developments in video technology and the growing media studies movement in colleges and universities, media education at the secondary and primary school levels in the United States have undergone an unprecedented growth in the last ten years. Teaching TV seeks to represent the developing media education movement, and to critically assess a wide variety of projects and programs from around the country.

Artists Space programs are made possible by: the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, New York State Council on the Arts, and New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; AT&T Foundation, Inc., The David Bermant Foundation: Color, Light, Motion, The Bohen Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc., Horace w. Goldsmith Foundation, The Greenwall Foundation, Jerome Foundation, The J.M. Kaplan Fund, The Dorothea L. Leonhardt Foundation, Inc., The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation, Inc., The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, The Menemsha Fund, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, Betty Parsons Foundation, The Reed Foundation, Inc., The Rockefeller Foundation, The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.; American Express Company, The Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A., Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., Equitable Real Estate Group, Inc., General Atlantic Corporation, R.H. Macy and Company, Inc., Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York, Philip Morris Companies Inc., and U.S. Trust Company of New York; as well as Artwatch, Galleries in Support of Artists Space, Members and numerous Friends.

Artists Space is a member of the National Association of Artists Organizations (NAAO) and the National Alliance of Media Arts Centers (NAMAC).