RECENT SHOWS:

#332 Basta Ya!
Paper Tiger collaborated with youth in Brooklyn to create a video on how gentrification and development affects residents. Rents and property values skyrocketed over the past few years in Sunset Park, a mostly Latino and Asian working class neighborhood in Brooklyn. People are being displaced as condominiums are being built. This video was created to inform residents about what is happening and to inspire the community to take action. However gentrification is happening in communities everywhere, and we want this video to also be seen in a global context. Watch it on our Vlog!

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#334 Reality Unreeled: The Really Real Unreal Reality of Real Reality TV
Is reality television real? Is this the real life or is it just fantasy? Paper Tiger's summer 2009 interns created a show on reality television, to explore the social impacts and affective stereotypes of this explosive and exploitative genre that has taken TV networks by storm. The show features an interview with media critic, journalist and founder of Women in Media and News, Jennifer L. Pozner. Pozner explains the social, economic and cultural reality of reality TV. The show also includes an interview with Robert Galinsky, founder and “principal” of the New York Reality TV School, where actors get trained how to act real. And the interns try to make sense of all of those "Addicted to Beauty" posters through interviews with random subway passer-bys.

This show will be part of Paper Tiger’s garden screening on August 26th, 2010. But if you can’t wait until then, watch it on our Vlog!.

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#335 U.S. Department of Defense Contracts #335
A live performance piece taped at Manhattan Neighborhood Network Studios in which Paper Tiger reads and responds to the United States Department of Defense Contracts for July 2nd, 2010. These contracts, valued $5 million or more, are announced each business day at 5 pm on the Department of Defense website. Produced with Red Channels. Watch it on our Vlog!
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#333 Paper Tiger Reads 21st Century Working Woman

A feminist comedy show examining representations of working women in mainstream media and the evolution of women’s place in the workforce over the past 50 years. Structured as a local news program starring two female anchors this show uses slapstick comedy, man-on-the-street interviews, live music, kitschy camera techniques, big hair-dos, and plenty of cribbed footage to examine a myriad of issues related to the contemporary working woman. Topics covered include the economic crisis of 2008, Non-Traditional Employment for Women, a New York based non-profit that helps women enter the construction and building trades, and one woman’s rise and fall in the workplace, all interwoven into a critique of mainstream media representations of women working.

This will be part of Paper Tiger’s garden screening on August 26th, 2010. But if you can’t wait until then, watch it on our Vlog!.
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Peace Pentagon Production
For forty years, the building at 339 Lafayette, also known as the Peace Pentagon, has been home to countless peace and justice organizations in New York City. The AJ Muste Institute, the current owner of the building, has played a vital role in supporting the work of many committed and inspirational leaders of the social justice movement. A recent engineering survey revealed that the building is in need of significant repairs, therefore this stronghold of national and international activism and organizing now faces an uncertain future. Members of Paper Tiger Television, which has been housed in the Peace Pentagon since 1986, produced a video that raises awareness of the building’s significant history and the need to repair, renovate and green the building. The current situation presents a unique opportunity to transform this landmark building into a powerful and sustainable cornerstone of progressive ideals, while simultaneously making a prominent statement against the consumer excess rapidly engulfing the neighborhood around it. Watch it on our Vlog!.

IN PRODUCTION:

Surveilling Surveillance
Paper Tiger Television is currently in production of a new show on surveillance culture. From government wiretapping to Facebook, GPS systems to credit card swipes, Google searches to nanny cams- how are you being watched? What are the implications of living in a surveillance culture? Are we safer or are our civil liberties threatened? Watch out for this new production coming out late summer 2010. Meanwhile check out some of the interviews for this show in our Vlog!
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Public Spaces
Paper Tiger is working on a new half hour show exploring the definition of public space and its "appropriate" uses. Looking at several NYC sites, we will examine who makes decisions about how public space is used, where it is located, and how our role as consumers or creators affects these places. The show will focus on Union Square, the Highline, and outer-borough community gardens. Interview partners include Sharon Zukin, professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and author of "Naked City," and Don Mitchell, geographer at Syracuse University and author of "The Right to the City."
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Social Movements 2010
The current global economic crisis has generated a series of social movements and political upheavals. From the riots in Athens to the university strike in Puerto Rico to political demonstrations in Thailand, a new specter is haunting the globe, with unsuspected force. The involvement of segments of population usually disconnected from political action, their use of media tools unavailable just a decade ago and the fact that there isn't a clear ideological or institutional line guiding these protests makes them different from the traditional modes of political action. Are we in a new revolutionary moment or is this just a regular cycle of politics a usual? Paper Tiger Summer 2010 interns are putting together a show to set forth some questions regarding the nature and the possibilities of these new movements.
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Archive Project
We've launched an ambitious archiving project! The Paper Tiger archive includes over 320 shows and hundreds of related documents, items, and ephemera. These shows and documents not only reflect the work of many prominent media scholars, activists, cultural critics, and artists of the last 25 years, but also that of activists from social justice movements whose struggle might otherwise have gone undocumented. As a result, the Paper Tiger archive houses one of the most unique and important historical media collections, and encompasses critical components of the evolution of public access television, video art, media advocacy, visual literacy, and video activism.

There are two components to the current project:

• preservation of tapes (video masters)

• organization, catalogue, and preservation of historically important documents, items, and related ephemera (for example, photographs, props from shows, meeting minutes, etc.)

The project is currently in the assessment stage.