Sonic Outlaws & Emergency Broadcast Network

The Emergency Broadcast Network (or EBN), immediately shows its audience that it is ready to satirize what is commonly understood as "standardized" television. We've all seen testing occur while watching our televisions, but the "tests" performed by the Emergency Broadcast Network, are of a much different form.

First the EBN attempts to create "multimedia performances" by taking cable television feeds and breaking them down, then editing them to a beat of a song. The audio is broken down into split second clips to create lyrical phrases from numerous different vocalists. wikipedia.com offers an example of this:

For example, the lyric "electronic behavior control system" would be created with a clip of Ross Perot saying "electronic", followed by a clip of George H. W. Bush saying "behavior", then Ted Koppel saying "control", and finally a clip of Bill Clinton saying "system".

The EBN uses this too provide their own commentary on the influence of television on it's audience's lives. The most interesting story of the EBN is explained in Sonic Outlaws. Not long after U2 sued Negativland for their album, U2 started their tour "ZooTV," which has obvious similarities to media remixing and video collages. According to tvtrecords.com, EBN was hired to provide visuals for U2's tour.

Today, EBN still exists, but the make-up of the group has changed and will change in the future. Currently they have a release online at the Eclectic Method website.