PAPER TIGER TELEVISION: It’s 8:30. Do you know where your brains are?

30 Jan-19 Apr 2026

Overview

It’s 8:30. Do you know where your brains are? presents the work of Paper Tiger Television (PTTV), a US-based video production and distribution collective that used the public access channels of cable television to make nearly 400 programmes. Over four decades of critical and creative activity, they also presented hundreds of workshops and trained countless video-makers. Founded in 1981, a conjunction in which the residual political optimism from the 1960s combined with an enthusiasm for newly available video technologies, PTTV used cable television to both critique the corporate control of mainstream media and provide a radical alternative to it. Underpinned by political activism, their work was often connected with, and reported on, grassroots campaigns and interventions. In formal terms, PTTV developed in the aftermath of conceptual art and avant-garde film but, at the same time, marked a clear departure from them, both in terms of its DIY strategies and homemade feel.

Featuring around 40 programmes and archival material, this exhibition will present iconic works like Joan Braderman’s Joan Does Dynasty (1985) – described as ‘the classic feminist performance video of the era’ by Yvonne Rainer – and Herb Schiller’s critical readings of the New York Times. Other highlights include Renee Tajima Reads Asian Images in American Films: Charlie Chan Go Home! (1984), a video that traces the images of Asian women in Hollywood productions; Archie Singham Reads Foreign Policy: A Look at the Old Boys’ Network (1983), a programme that argues that a monopoly on political affairs have fostered ‘a society fixated on the machinations of war rather than the possibilities of peace’; Marther Rosler Reads Vogue (1982), a live performance deconstructing the messages in the eponymous fashion magazine and its advertising; and Richie Perez Watches “Fort Apache: The Bronx” (1983), an in-depth look at the community-led campaign to counteract the racist depictions of Puerto Rican and Black people in Daniel Petrie’s 1981 film.