Thursday, August 27, 2009

Urban Environmentalism: DIY Green Living

Paper Tiger Television introduces you to New Yorkers who have found ways to live more sustainably through DIY environmentalism. The creative and unique projects of these city dwellers show how living in urban settings encourages rather than hinders their ability to live a green lifestyle. This show features segments on worm composting as an alternative to landfill waste, reusable bags for green markets, food foraging walks with Wildman Steve Brill, and the monthly "Really, Really Free Market" in Manhattan, hosted by the In Our Hearts Collective. As an extra bonus, there is also an archival piece about the thriving yet threatened Lower East Side community gardens, documenting the residents struggle to save their gardens from the wrath of Mayor Giuliani's gentrifying bulldozers. Finally, the show includes a studio conversation between community members discussing how environmentalism, through resourcefulness and perseverance, can become a part of everyone's urban routine.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

reality bites: the summer intern show!



Is reality television real? Is this the real life or is it just fantasy? Paper Tiger's summer 2009 interns are currently creating a show on reality television to explore the social impacts and affective stereotypes of this explosive and exploitative genre that has taken TV networks by storm. The show will feature an interview with media critic, journalist and founder of Women in Media and News, Jennifer L. Pozner. Pozner will explain the social, economic and cultural reality of reality TV. The show will also include an interview with Robert Galinsky, founder and “principal” of the New York Reality TV School, where actors get trained how to act real. And the interns will try to make sense of all of those "Addicted to Beauty" posters that you see everywhere through interviews with random subway passer-bys. Stay tuned for the release of the show in late Fall 2009. In the meantime, keep yourselves busy with this preview piece from the Paper Tiger archives with Herb Schiller on Geraldo and trash television—the unfortunate predecessors of contemporary “video nausea!!!”

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Street Art Takeover!

On April 25th teams of whitewashers and artists transformed over 100 of NPA City Outdoor's 480 illegal billboards in Manhattan from street level advertising to art. Organized by Public Ad Campaign's Jordan Seiler, the New York Street Art Takeover 2009 not only set out to bring more art to public space, but to raise the question of who controls our visual landscape?