Paper Tiger Exhibition at NYU Library

AN INTERVIEW WITH DEE DEE HALLECK FROM PAPER TIGER TELEVISION

March 22, 2012, 6:14 pm
Filed under: Exhibition, New York City, television, Activism | Tags: Lucas Green, Dee Dee Halleck,Paper Tiger Television

Citywide aims for progressive programming. We bring many people onto the show who stand to make a change in the world in whatever way they strive to do. This can take place in a number of different ways. Some of our guests are out there trying to improve conditions for less privileged parts of our society as well as spreading a humanitarian message, see our post on Immortal Technique. Some of our guests are actively trying to expand on what the human being can physically be, like recent guest Genesis Breyer P-Orridge. Some of our guests have represented a change itself in being an original artist, like Mykki Blanco who was on last month.
These are people our program has brought on for our audience to check out and have something different to think about. Paper Tiger Television, our feature this week, is another weekly program in the City which doesn’t just discuss the people who are doing progressive work this day, the people on the show itself have been pioneering and innovative since the show’s formation in 1981. PPTV recognizes that there must be an aggressive front to counter a mainstream media that is largely controlled by large corporations. Formed entirely by volunteers who share the concern of what control mass media has over today’s culture, PPTV has been one of the most consistent and driven organizations of people who insist that there be a source of criticism and information outside the commercial world.
I spoke with one of the founders of Paper Tiger Television, Dee Dee Halleck, who took me through some of the early years of the new form of media activism which PPTV represented at the beginning of the 1980s. It is important to note about PPTV that while that not only did they set a new precedent for activists trying to reach a mass audience, they also set an important precedent for the mediums of public cable television which was just emerging at the time. And while programs such as The Coca Crystal Show and Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party (“The TV party that could be a political party”) had already fought to claim the medium as one belonging to the people, PPTV ensured that the medium would balways be used to also speak for the people.
It’s an extraordinary organization that continues to do extraordinary work. Greatest of all is that they are always accepting volunteers. Check out their website and see what you think about the work they do; see if maybe you even want to help. You can also watch many of the programs tand documentaries they have produced. That’s righthere.
PPTV is currently celebrating it’s 30 year anniversary with an exhibition at Fales Library at New York University. This is the exhibition’s website. Here is a video about the 30 year history of Paper Tiger Television-

Dee Dee Halleck also told me about a great new effort of hers to unite activists with similar causes around the world. Check out Deep Dish Waves of Change for more information about that. This program derives from another project of Dee Dee’s calledDeep Dish TV, a similar organization to PPTV, doing with satellite what Paper Tiger did with cable television.
Dee Dee told me some wonderful stories herself. Check out the interview here-
Here is one of the first PPTV programs, Herb Schiller reads the New York Times-



Lucas Green

Paper Tiger Exhibition at Fales

Camcorder Commando

New York Art Book Fair

Paper Tiger, Deep Dish TV and the Glassbead Collective installed an exhibit at the New York Art Book Fair, which was organized by Printed Matter.

The Art of Resistance from the Deep Dish "Shocking and Awful" series was projected.

The tapes presented included Donna Haraway Reads National Geography of Primates, Modern Art/Ancient Wages (about the MoMA strike of 2000) by Labor at the Crossroads (see below post), Glassbeads images from the Republican Convention in Saint Paul and other demonstrations.  There were also images of the PS1 Cement Wall and shots of the wall in Israel/Palestine shot by Jane Toby.

PS1 Wall

Wall in Bethlehem, Palestine

Joel Kovel Reads Life

History of Deep Dish

Sonia Malkine, Shady, New York

Sonia Malkine is a neighbor who lives in Shady-- just down the road from my house in Willow. During the 1960's I was living in Bloomingburg, New York, raising three children and a few goats. My lifeline to the larger world was WBAI FM which came in very clearly on our kitchen radio. One of the programs I loved was a weekly show by Sonia Malkine. She would sing and often have folk singer guests from all over the world. She has lived in Woodstock since the 1950s and graces the local scene with her concerts and song. I am working on a documentary about her life-- it began as a Paper Tiger show: Sonia Malkine Reads Anarchist Trading Cards.
Sonia's mother, May Piqueray, was a well-known French anarchist, and I knew that Sonia had known Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, so I showed Sonia a deck of anarchist cards, which I had bought at the Left Bank Book Store in Seattle. Sonia personally knew about half of the anarchists who were on the cards! Since so many young people call themselves anarchists, I thought it would be interesting to look a one woman's involvement with anarchism in the early part of the 20th century.
This clip is a rough beginning of the 28 minute program.