City Under Siege

“City Under Siege” examines contemporary representation of war in the media. The particular image under investigation first became predominant in the broadcast news media during the Gulf War. It is of a wide, high angle shot, recorded at night from the roof of a building looking out over a city, usually Baghdad. The shot stays static while the city below is bombarded in a fire show. There does not appear to be any life represented down there, no blood or exploded body parts. There doesn’t even seem to be a camera operator as the image never moves or reacts to a bomb dropping. The shot is almost green which denotes the low light “night vision” used to photograph it. The image has an abstraction to it, like it could be from a computer game. Is it even real? Ticker tape text scrolls along the bottom of the image, streaming text quotes from a variety of sources, from Marshall McLuhan to Buddha, that ruminate on the media and society in lieu of the usual breaking headlines and stock market figures. The image loops back around to a dark, quiet city and the cycle is repeated. “City Under Siege” consists of 1 continuously looping DVD. The video image is displayed on multiple TV sets that are stacked on top of each other in a street facing window. If the exhibition space has no street-facing window that can be viewed by the public, the TVs may also be suspended from the ceiling like those found suspended in airport terminals with the news displayed on them.