Steve Bradley considers himself to be a trans-media artist or generalist. He converts systems of cultural iconography via media and technology into an analytical and satirical
inter-mediated narrative. He has been conditioned by the media culture so
television (media) easily serves as his perfered mediated landscape. The
computer serves as the primary tool by which Bradley links many other tools,
medium technology rather than high technology. By digitizing, manipulating and
re/digitizing the electronic images of media, Bradley illustrats how "propaganda
is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism." (1) Noam Chomsky's
admonition to those who attempt to analyze the methods and messages of public
control speak to artists as well as political theorists:
"For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent
task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of
indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies,
much less so in the system of 'brain-washing under freedom' to which
we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or
unwitting instruments."
(1) Noam Chomsky, The Manufacture of Consent
Bradley's own daily awareness of TV/print propaganda through image and script
and what is not written or filmed is translated into art that speaks in the language
of mass culture but offers "coverage" and interpretation that is erased or ignored
in mainstream TV culture. His objective is to share his outrage and sense of
absurdity to effect some point of awareness in the vast network of cyberspace
and wall space. By "naming" the codes of control, Bradley seeks empowerment
for himself and the community so we can stay awake in the midst of the media's
pervasive anesthesia that numbs us to hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil.
