Dumping Core by Gretchen Bender

November 25, 2022

MoMa Video Installation

“In Dumping Core, a frenzy of images appears across thirteen video monitors, creating an information overload set to a proto-techno soundtrack. The installation mimics and exaggerates the pervasive media culture prompted by then-new television networks like CNN and MTV. As Bender said, "I quickly got caught up in the way in which TV moves, the current... From that equivalent flow I tried to force
some kind of consciousness of underlying patterns of social control" By rapidly intercutting computer-generated logos, graphics, and other clips from TV and movies, the artist sought to subvert corporate agendas and expose the rampant use of new image-making technologies for commercial gain. The work's title refers to a computer error called a"core dump" and also alludes to the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, capturing fears of technological dystopia and nuclear annihilation. Conceived and staged as a work of "electronic theater"-and originally performed during a single evening -Dumping Core demanded a close look at the power of televisual media at a nascent moment of the rapidly accelerating digital age.”