Moving Archives: The 2016 U.S. Presidential TV Ad Archive

This film is comprised of 16,384 video clips from the The 2016 U.S. Presidential TV Ad Archive of The Internet Archive. The clips are laid out in a 128 by 128 grid, organized by sonic similarity. The viewer is moved through this mosaic of sounds and images in various ways that highlight the underlying forms, textures, and atmospheres of the source materials. At its peak, the viewer will be experiencing about 4.5 hours of footage per second.

Methodology

Visit the methodology page and source code for in-depth detail for how this film was created.

About this collection

The Political TV Ad Archive, a project by the Internet Archive, collected and tracked airings of political ads in key markets the 2016 election cycle. The collection also linked ads to fact-checks by national fact-checking organizations. In addition to tracking airings across key primary states, the collection includes ads that may air elsewhere or exclusively on social media.

To make this film, I downloaded all the publicly available ads in the Political TV Ad Archive that were marked as part of the presidential race and either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump were mentioned in the ad.

Source list

Visit this film's complete source list that outlines where all 16,384 clips are sourced from.

About Moving Archives

This film is part of the Moving Archives film series by Brian Foo that immerses you in the patterns, rhythms, and textures embedded within thousands of hours of footage from public moving image archives.