OPINION: Political propaganda has no place on Sunset Strip

Visitors eager to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Sunset Strip will soon be greeted with overtly political, IMAX-sized propaganda disguised as art paid for and promoted by the City of West Hollywood right in the midst of presidential elections.

As part of the city’s Moving Image Media Artworks (MIMA) program, visual artist Nancy Baker Cahill has created a 10-minute multimedia/augmented reality short film called “Body Politic” that will be shown on the giant-sized digital billboards of Sunset Boulevard at the top of every hour from Oct. 1 through January. 

“Body Politic” is a series of three mini motion pictures commenting on the loss of abortion rights in America through disturbing imagery such as dancers writhing pain, fallopian tubes suspended from the ceiling and an “exploding uterus” meant to illustrate “the first court-ordered and state-sanctioned intervention on bodies, where wombs become disembodied sites of legal and criminal action.”

The augmented-reality portion of the exhibit is explicitly intended to connect viewers to the ballot box, and to vote against those it associates with anti-abortion policies:

The interactive Augmented Reality experience (AR) can be viewed in-person, on a personal mobile device via the free 4th Wall App, at 8743 Sunset Boulevard. On-site, viewers will experience the monumental AR animation, along the top of the billboard, of dancing figures under a huge rotating disco ball. Viewers will be prompted to cast their vote for one of twelve human rights — including the rights to “a healthy planet,” “separated church and state,” “equal protection” and “protest peacefully.” Votes will register, in real time, as a color that corresponds to each right as it expands within the disco ball and dancing figures, in turn generating a co-built global body politic. Voting can be done from anywhere on earth and as often as a viewer wants, but experiencing the work’s evolution and interaction with the billboard requires being physically present at 8743 Sunset Boulevard. The collective experience of the artwork and AR component not only models an immediate visualization of democracy in action; it goes one step further. After voting in the app, an automatic link will appear for further direct action on behalf of the right that is listed (e.g., a link to a leading nonprofit organization, a key lawmaker’s office number, etc.). This is the first such intervention of its kind.

MIMA, overseen by the city’s Arts Division, was launched in 2022 as an innovative outlet for video artists to have their work shown on the some of the country’s grandest screens.

“Public art interventions, and more specifically artwork on digital billboards, play a critical role in provoking meaningful discourse and action,” City Hall says.

West Hollywood isn’t the first to use building-sized images to push a partisan agenda — or to use that rationale in justifying it.

Visual propaganda and billboards played a central role in disseminating Maoist ideology and promoting the political idealogy of the Communist Party during China’s Cultural Revolution. Posters  were ubiquitous in public places, ensuring that Mao’s image and thoughts were inescapable in the daily lives of Chinese citizens. Large-scale murals were painted on buildings, walls, and other public structures, embedding political messages directly into the visual landscape of cities and villages.

One major difference? The Chinese artists probably didn’t see a payday like Nancy Baker Cahill is.

Cahill currently holds an exclusive $185,000 contract to “curate” artworks for MIMA.

Correction: Cahill’s $185,000 contract is for commissioning the artwork referenced in the item. Also, it’s not an exclusive contract, there’s an open call for MIMA with review every 6 months.

The Sunset Strip’s digital billboards are a state-of-the-art, entirely unexplored new medium. They have the potential to display works of art that is beautiful beyond the scope of anything seen before — art that lives and breathes. What a shame the city is blowing taxpayer dollars on a piece that is entrenched in the hyperpartisan, divisive, confrontational dogma everybody in America is sick of. MIMA should be stoking wonder, hope and awe in those who see it, inspiring a love for West Hollywood — not used for a thinly veiled retread of propaganda techniques used to subjugate and mislead so many unfortunate people in history. 

Judging by what was presented to the Arts & Cultural Affairs Commission this week, “Body Politic” is pedantic, belligerent, and worst of all, just plain ugly. The Creative City can do a lot better.