State of Emergency is a deliberately provocative public projection series, organised and curated by Sherry Millner and Ernest Larsen. Initially, it was rear-projected in the second-floor windows of the loft in which they live in New York City. Subsequent editions, featuring contributions by more than 15 media artists, have screened at a variety of unconventional venues in the U.S. and Europe. Contributors include: Martha Rosler, Greg Sholette, Mary Kelly, Allan Sekula, Leslie Thronton, and John Greyson, among many others.

State of Emergency began as an agit-prop shout-out against the ever-deepening devastation of democracy in the U.S., as resistance at once to the continuing U.S. invasions of the Middle East and to the permanent state of emergency in which we are trapped. In breaking loose of institutional constraints, in displacing the gestural and perceptual regimen of the everyday, in capturing the spontaneous attentions of walkers, wanderers, and workers, the project enacts both anarchist and situationist aesthetics. Millner & Larsen, who are presently editing a film essay on the aftermath of the Greek insurrection of December 2008, will also screen another of their interventionist films, as part of the 90 minute program, which will be followed by a discussion with the artists.

Ernie Larsen and Sherry Millner are collaborative video makers that live and work in New York. Sherry Millner has been producing films, videotapes, and photomontages remarkable for their mixture of humour, analysis and personal insight, embracing a wide range of issues, from the mundane to the political. Ernie Larsen is a fiction writer and media critic. They began collaborating in the mid-seventies with a performance about the Weather Underground. Since then their video projects have been exhibited and have won awards at major festivals throughout the world including two Whitney Biennials.