Norman Cowie is a video artist and writer in Los Angeles.

Some of his productions include: Signal to Noise: Life with Television (Co-Director; 1996), The Third Wave, Miss Menu's Interactive World, Poison Ivy (1995), Mr. Rogers Goes Begging the Question!!!, It's a Proud Day for America, About Face (1991), Lying in State (1989), and Nazareth in August (1986).

Ranging from collaborative documentaries to video art

Video art

Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...

, Cowie's work interrogates the relations of power and domination in contemporary society, and seeks to problematize the ways in which meaning and consent are constructed through the media

Mass media

Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...

. Cowie's videotapes often use the techniques of documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, off-air appropriation, and short form sound and text collage

Collage

A collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....

. Currently a video producer and a professor teaching media theory and production, Cowie has been drawn toward media literacy

Media literacy

Media literacy is a repertoire of competences that enable people to analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres, and forms.-Education:...

 as an activist and pedagogical tool.

External links

• Official Norman Cowie website
• Norman Cowie in the Video Data Bank
  Video Data Bank
  Video Data Bank is an international video art distribution organization and a resource in the United States for videos by and about contemporary artists...