An Emergent Second Life

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For 27 years, the PTTV collective has played an important role in the tradition of media criticism, paying special attention to the inner workings of media production. The media landscape today, with the proliferation of new content providers, creates complex relationships and convergences among everyday and corporate forms of production, distribution and consumption. Media criticism no longer can take an "outside" vantage point, but must instead account for our general immersion in a veritable media ecology. This program, hosted by anthropologist Jason Pine (Purchase College SUNY), focuses on identity in the virtual world Second Life and what it can tell us about identity in everyday experience. It suggests that self-designed experiences may enable us to articulate emergent identities for ourselves and others. The program combines a live studio audience, videotaped testimonials of Second Life users who express profound personal investments while creating their avatars and environments, and experimental machinima (machine cinema) to evoke the experience of virtual self-design and world-building. Co- Producer and Director, Bianca Ahmadi; Associate Producer, Juan Rubio; Editor, Juan David Gonzalez; Content Director, Jason Pine.

Infiltrating the Underground: The Corporatization of Radical Culture

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This Paper Tiger Television production was created in collaboration with author and activist Anne Elizabeth Moore. The show takes a look at how corporations are chipping away at democracy and personal integrity by copying the style and techniques of alternative culture. The program examines how and why anti-corporate culture and independent media have been co-opted by corporate advertising and their profit-making agenda, examining instances where the government and big business collude to silence independent voicesand concerns for social justice. Moore explains what happens when the underground becomes just another market and the implications for a democracy founded on the ideals of access to a diversity of ideas and perspectives. It also provides insight as to why underground culture willingly participates and what independent artists and media makers can do about it. Paper Tiger Televisions 27-year history of provocative independent television and Moores 23 years of independent print publishing combine in this compelling look at cultural production and economic censorship in this age of rampant branding.

Love Me, Love My Avatar

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This show addresses changing notions of love and romance in the face of the rampant technological innovations of the Internet era. Dominic Pettman, Assistant Professor of Culture and Media at the New School and our avatar host take a look at love in the digital era. Pettman discuses several manifestations of "Love 5.0" such as objectum sexuality, virtual girlfriends, and cyborg love, and explore the possible impacts of this new love on the future of the libidinal economy. Includes a clip from Donna Haraway Reads National Geographic and a PTTV eharmony spoof.

Infiltrating the Underground Preview

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Paper Tiger Television, in cooperation with author and activist Anne Elizabeth Moore, presents a new thirty-minute documentary, Infiltrating the Underground: The Corporatization of Underground Culture, to air Wednesday, December 10th at 3 and 11 p.m. on Brooklyn Community Access Television, and at 8 p.m. on Manhattan Neighborhood Network. This video collaboration will look at how big business is chipping away at democracy through underground cultures—and how underground cultures willingly participate.

The program will examine how and why anti-corporate culture and independent media have been co-opted by corporate advertising and the profit-making agenda, examining instances where the government and big business collude to silence independent voices—and concerns for social justice. Copies of Infiltrating the Underground are available for purchase for classroom use or to air on local community access stations.

A follow-up to Moore’s 2007 New Press book, Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity, the video Infiltrating the Underground investigates what happens when the underground becomes just another market, and what independent artists and media makers can do about it. Paper Tiger Television’s 27-year history of provocative independent television and Anne Elizabeth Moore’s 23 years of independent print publishing combine in this compelling look at cultural production and economic censorship in this age of rampant branding.

An Emergent Second Life

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A television show produced in collaboration with Paper Tiger TV that focuses on identity in the virtual world Second Life and what it can tell us about identity in everyday experience. It suggests that self-designed experiences may enable us to articulate emergent identities for ourselves and for others. The program combines a live studio audience, videotaped testimonials of Second Life users who express profound personal investments while creating their avatars and environments, and experimental machinima (machine cinema) to evoke the experience of virtual self-design and world-building: www.papertiger.org

The show airs on December 3rd at 8pm on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (MNN) and at 3pm and 11pm on Brooklyn Community (BCAT). Co-producer and Director, Bianca Ahmadi; Associate Producer, Juan Rubio; Editor, Juan David Gonzalez; Content Director, Jason Pine.