A Simple Case for Torture, or How to Sleep at Night
Martha Rosler
A Simple Case for Torture, or How to Sleep at Night, 1983
Video, color, sound, 61 min 46 sec Speakers: Michael Bernhard, Lyn Blumenthal, Martha Rosler, John Strauss Singer: Frank White Camera: Dieter Froese, Martha Rosler
GF0002004.00.0-1999
Artwork text
In this videotape, Rosler refers to an editorial column in Newsweek in which a professor of philosophy argues in favor of torture under certain circumstances. In the voiceover, Rosler analyses this line of argument as totalitarian. On the basis of a filmed collection of newspaper articles that rush by too quickly to read—articles that address such topics as human rights, unemployment, and the global economy, the American administration is associated with support for regimes that use systematic torture. Rosler charges the American press with its role in transmitting false information through the way reports are selected, the way language is used, and the way it indirectly legitimizes a personal opinion justifying torture. (Sabine Breitwieser)