Judite Dos Santos Messages to the Public: American Dreams

Judite Dos Santos’ message, American Dreams, takes on the passivity of the American public toward the current problems in Nicaragua, and the role of the media and government in the cultivation of that passivity. The message, which appears onscreen one sentence at a time, reads, “They lie—and break the law. We watch. They kill—in the name of peace. We watch. ‘Others’ lose their freedom. We feel immune. We dream American dreams.” Dos Santos (b. Porto, Portugal) explains, “The passivity and neutrality with which Americans watch the atrocities brought upon the Nicaraguan people by American backed soldiers are one example of the indifference existent when those atrocities are happening to ‘others.’” Dos Santos describes her primary artistic themes as those “concerning the powerful effect the mass media has in consciousness and the construction of meaning.”

Messages to the Public formed a key part of the Public Art Fund’s long-term commitment to media-based artworks. Running from 1982 to 1990, the show featured a series of artists’ projects created specifically for the Spectacolor board at Times Square.

As Russell Miller from Ohio newspaper The Toledo Blade explained in his article on February 19, 1984, “every month, a different artist presents a 30-second animation on the Spectacolor light board—an 800-square-foot array of 8,000 red, white, blue, and green 60-watt bulbs that dominates the Times Square vista. The spot is repeated more than 50 times a day for two weeks, wedged into a 20-minute loop of computer-animated commercials.

“Jane Dickson, a painter, was working for Spectacolor, Inc. as an ad designer and computer programmer when, three and a half years ago, she first thought to use the light board to display noncommercial art.

“‘I picked that title,’ she said of Messages to the Public, ‘because I thought the propaganda potential from this project was terrific.’ The board, she noted, was regularly used for ‘commercial propaganda.’

“Dickson sought help from the Public Art Fund, an organization based here and dedicated to taking art out of the galleries and placing it in the city’s streets and parks.”

Project Director of the Public Art Fund Jessica Cusick explained, “We’re trying to do art that’s timely, has a message, is visually potent and is trying to deal with the fine line dividing fine art and commercial art.”