Mahindra Center for the Humanities
Visual Representation, Materiality, and the Medium Seminar chaired by Ewa Lajer-Burcharth
David Joselit - "Television's Partitioned Publics"
Tuesday, April 13th at 5:30pm EST
The Visual Representation, Materiality, and the Medium Seminar Series, chaired by Professor Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, is excited to host Professor David Joselit, who will present "Television's Partitioned Publics."
The split-screen has moved from a special-effects device to a literal figure of, and tool for achieving political balkanization. This lecture traces the genealogy of this form from sports television through CNN’s invention of the 24-hour news cycle, and the explosion of political spin in an era of fake news. The split in split screens simultaneously isolates different informational realities from one another while insisting on the forced contemporaneity of “breaking news.” This figure of the split screen as political splintering is compared to the proliferation of screens and their inscription on the body as practiced by artists such as Nam June Paik.