Media Ecology Ads

1982, 12:22 min, color, sound

Muntadas subverts the language of commercial advertisements in his witty visual critique of the production and consumption of television images. The three segments — Fuse,Time and Slow Down — are visual commentaries that challenge specific formal elements of TV advertising: edited time, visual speed, the relation of text and image, narration and format. Physical events evolving in real time — a burning fuse, a timer, a slowly dripping faucet — unfold in leisurely contrast to the fragmentation and speed of edited TV time, which signifies the "time is money" equation that dominates the market ideology of television's media landscape.

Technical Assistance/Editor: John Barnett.