Series: New Television
Program: New Television
Episode: 307
Date: 1986-01-01
Subject: Animal welfare; Elephants; Animals
People: Reeves, Daniel
Copyright Holder: Daniel Reeves

Clip Description
"Ganapati" examines the issues of cruelty to animals, focusing on the treatment of elephants. Sections were filmed on location in Kenya, India, and Thailand. Much reference is made to the respect paid to elephants by some spiritual practices, where they are considered to be deities. Older moving image footage is incorporated, which shows a circus elephant being killed, and performing elephants in film, television advertisements, and nature shows. A variety of text sources are quoted in the form of voiceovers, including works by Rudyard Kipling, Rainer Maria Rilke, Chief Seattle, Federico Garcia Lorca, and original writings by Daniel Reeves.

Music includes Sufi improvisations by Nezih Uzel and Kudsi Ergunner, works by the Burundi artists, and a xylophone solo by Htaw Pine. Daniel Reeves provides additional synthesizer music.

Program Description
This episode of "New Television" features Shalom Gorewitz's "A Small Jubilee," plus two works by Daniel Reeves - "A Mosaic for the Kali Yugaquot; and "Ganapati: A Spirit in the Bush."

"A Small Jubilee" is dedicated to "Rosa," Shalom Gorewitz's grandmother. In this short seven-minute-long piece Shalom Gorewitz examines religious symbolism. Copyright: Shalom Gorewitz.

With a torrent of mass media images, Daniel Reeves creates a grid-like mosaic of talking heads backed by sounds of explosions and machine guns. Referring to the spiritual work of Vishnu Parnan, Reeves explores the concept of materialism and deceit in our society. The work is just under five minutes long. Copyright: Daniel Reeves.

Originally created for The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund, "Ganapati," by video artist Daniel Reeves, is a collage-style sequence of images that examines the issues of cruelty to animals, focusing on the treatment of elephants. The work is approximately 45 minutes long. Copyright: Daniel Reeves.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Ganapati31.HTML