Television Delievers People

Richard Serra in 1972 created a video art piece that resembled credits of a film. As the video played, it explained sentence after sentence that television created products out of the viewer itself rather than the programs being the products. I think that the programs are used to be influences for the viewer to be inspired to create or purchase something. Today especially it doesn't really matter what the product is or how good it works, but rather how much you can sell compared to someone else. Domination is the name of the game for television. The more money you make, the more power you have, therefore the more control you have over the programs. Like Serra said, corporations are the ones who control the networks on television. Therefore the more they program a viewer, the more money they will make and gain even more control. As viewers pay more for television or even the products featured on the tv, the bigger the corporations will grow. This makes me question how much we really even like what we see. Is it the stories or is it just the products that we like. And do we even like the products, or are corporations just that good at making us think that we need this? Serra also featured a line that the consumers are paying for what they see, therefore we are paying the corporations to decide what we should watch and what we like. Are they really that good at their jobs? Personally, I would watch the performance art videos that were created by class members on tv, however corporations would never feature projects like those because they think outside the box and break boundaries, however I think the general public would absolutely love them. Serra has a great point that corporations are running our televisions and creating products from us. It really doesn't matter what they decide to put on tv, if we're paying for it they'll continue to do whatever they want. The bold, thick but yet plain font that Serra adds to his video art adds to the art because it makes you look at it without any distractions, especially since the words in this case are the art. I really liked the music that he added to the video since it was soft and gave a happy feeling to the film with the truthful words. The music reminded much of the music in the film Casa Blanca and with the black and grey background it went perfectly.