If it's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be DISINFORMATION
Martha Rosler
If it's Too Bad to Be True, It Could Be DISINFORMATION, 1985
Video, color, sound, 16 min 26 sec Post production: John J. Godfrey
GF0002006.00.0-1999
Artwork text
The title of both the installation and the video is drawn from an article in the New York Times on Soviet MIG fighter planes in Nicaragua. In this article “disinformation” is defined as a strategy of the administration for misleading people with incorrect details and cover-ups, causing confusion and even destabilizing a government, but startlingly, this is with reference to the Soviet Union, not the U.S. With a montage of NBC Nightly News and other news broadcasts, the artist inquires into the reliability of electronic broadcasts by integrating mistakes in sound and image, as if they were technical problems. (Sabine Breitwieser)