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Dara Birnbaum Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman 1978-79

  • Not on view

American households in the late 1970s consumed, on average, over six hours of television per day. Around that time, Birnbaum began working with footage hijacked from television broadcasts. She re-edited material from the popular program Wonder Woman to emphasize how mass media alternates between heroic and trivializing depictions of women. “Where am I between the two?” Birnbaum has asked. “I’m a secretary, I’m a Wonder Woman, and there’s nothing in-between. And the in-between is the reality we need to live in.” She installed the video in the storefront of a SoHo hair salon, for all to see.

Gallery label from 2019
Medium
Video (color, sound)
Duration
5:50 min.
Credit
Committee on Media Funds
Object number
1161.2007
Copyright
© 2024 Dara Birnbaum. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
Department
Media and Performance

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