Les Levine Messages to the Public: Media Mass

Les Levine (b. 1935, Dublin), a pioneer of media art, created Media Mass (Local News) to respond to the environment in which it is being broadcast. The artist believes that the same space used by mass media to sell us products can be used to bring us new art experiences.

Media Mass (Local News) consists of ten 40-foot wide, brightly colored words which the artist claims are the ten “bad news commandments” of local news: CHEAT HATE KILL LIE RACE RAPE SELL STARVE STEAL WIN. These words repeat, change color, and flash on and off in rapid succession like a visual chant or prayer.

According to the artist, “The words in Media Mass are repeated continuously every day, every hour in local newspapers, on TV and radio like a form of continuous incantation. At this point one has to ask, “What is media praying for?’”

With the ten bad news commandments of local news, Levine magnifies the media’s effect on our minds. By shortening the normal distance between these words, he heightens our awareness of media’s impact. Levine uses the repetition and exaggeration of television local news buzz words to focus our attention on what he believes to be mass media’s attachment to hysteria and anxiety.

In Media Mass, Levine uses an existing system to offer the possibility of change. He states, “While some may be initially upset by what appears to be a commercial for bad news, hopefully Media Mass will heighten the public’s need for better news. Instead of blindly accepting repeated negativity and violence, perhaps we can see how it is making us sick and try to inhale some fresh air.”

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.”