Dara Birnbaum

Dara Birnbaum’s subversive, critical work reveals the mechanisms of mass media and condemns the manipulative power they hold over the construction and representation of feminine identity. Inspired by emerging practices in video art initiated in New York by artist Nam June Paik, Birnbaum has developed a practice based on the appropriation and deconstruction of televised images. Using excerpts from popular television programs and commercials, along with computerized techniques and other strategies, such as repetition and sound manipulation, she creates works that subvert the conventional stream of television programming and exposes the superficiality of their messages.