next 5 minutes international festival of tactical media, September 11-14 2003, Amsterdam
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The Riot Porn Video Booth

Author: redactie redactie

If you are at the festival and wondering what the large concrete box with caging is at De Balie then read on.
At the festival and wondering what the large concrete box with caging is at De Balie then read on. The Riot Porn Video Booth is an installation that operates conceptually on a number of levels. Firstly, it ironically plays with notions of the sex industry in western culture and is aptly placed in the city of Amsterdam. When entering the small cell like structure you are surrounded by red painted walls and multiple red lights on the ceiling. A single chair is placed in the corner, made from the fencing wire that is also covering the outside of the booth, and covered with red fake fur. When you sit in the chair you face a TV screen which features the brightness and contrast levels. Next to the screen is a coin box, again reminiscent of pornography booths where you pay to view. But this is where things get interesting, instead of paying to view scenes of sexual titilation, the images you pay for are violent and confronting scenes from riots, perhaps captured from the TV news. The power of this work is its investigation and referencing of how consumption of these types of events occurs in contemporary 'western' society. It had strong resonances for me, as in Australia most of the scenes we see on TV are remote and distant from our physical world and therefore surreal. Also, as there is a monopoly on corporate media in Australia, the images we see are heavily censored and controlled by commercial interests, often working to assist government agendas. The Riot Porn Video Booth makes the connection between the passivity of teleculture as well as acknowledging issues related to censorship. By making the audience unable to to escape the link between types of voyeuristic activity, it successfully creates a space of discomfort, one that forces you to consider the role of telemedia in a diversity of ways. Tracey Benson

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Tracey Benson