In collaboration with artists & film makers Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese, Transformer will be co-presenting a screening of Political Advertisement 1952-2024 at Busboys & Poets (450 K St. NW, Washington DC).

For 40 years, Antoni Muntadas and Marshall Reese have been compiling a video history of presidential campaign spots that follows the evolution of political advertising from its beginnings in 1952 to the present. When the artists started this project in 1984, acquiring broadcast political ads required exhaustive research in archives and often involved personal contact with the candidate’s campaigns, not as easy as today’s internet click and download.

The feature length video is a personal vision of how politics and politicians are shaped and presented through the moving image. Political Advertisement is an engaging critique, without voiceover commentary, highlighting how campaign ads manipulate public perception and affect voter behavior.

“Tonally, the film is a perfect hybrid of its creators’ sensibilities. It’s funny and nostalgic, and has an innocent quality, while at the same time offering a bleak view of a specifically American form of propaganda, born in 1952, that has grown to shape our political process — not just the way we sell our politicians but the nature of the political discourse itself.” – John Seabrook, The New Yorker

The experience is an historical stream of consciousness showcasing the political and technological histories of presidential candidates and the broadcast moving image. The video illustrates how advertising strategies have changed from television’s early days into sophisticated media campaigns based on projections of fear, prejudice and emotional triggers. Political Advertisement stands as an important work of media art merging cultural critique with historical documentation prompting viewers to consider the role of media in politics and its effects on democracy.

Experience a special performance art piece by Ada Pinkston in Logan Circle Park. Presented as part of Pinkston’s current exhibition at Transformer: I’m Not Your Superwoman. Program free & open to the public.

Join us for a conversation about queer speculation, queer histories and the possibilities of that speculation creates with Dr. Alexis Lothian, Associate Professor at University of Maryland and author of Old Futures: Speculative Fiction and Queer Possibility and Dr. Kalima Young, Assistant Professor at Towson University, author of Mediated Misogynoir: The Erasure of Black Women and Girls’ Pain the Public Imagination, and A Different Horizon Atlas collaborator. Join using this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89608493780

Join Jaimes Mayhew in creating posters, costumes, and more to bring to the Capital Pride Parade, and rock all month long. Poster making materials provided while supplies last.

Opening day of A Different Horizon Atlas Artist talk with Jaimes Mayhew and Victoria Reis.