It’s not TV, and it’s not HBO

Anne Bray can’t face her television.

As the director of LA Freewaves, the biennial festival of video and new media, she’s spent countless hours in front of her TV screen. But only looking at art. Don’t ask her to tune in to commercial broadcasts.

“It upsets me, says Bray, 55. “Others watch TV to be entertained or to relax. That’s not my reaction. I get angry because of racism, sexism and stereotyping. I once watched the home shopping channel and my mouth was hanging open.”

LA Freewaves, a series of screenings and events during the next four weekends, provides a sample of what TV might be like if Bray owned a network.

The festival, which Bray founded in 1989, started out as a low-budget way to draw together Los Angeles’ disparate artistic communities. Prompted by Bray, local artists used videos to trade ideas.

Now the artistic swap is global.

For this, the ninth LA Freewaves festival, Bray solicited works from five continents and amassed more than 1,500 submissions. Though she relied on her 13 international and regional curators to whittle down submissions to 150, Bray admits she watched most herself too.

“I’m interested in creating a discourse in this city,” said Bray, who teaches classes in video art at Claremont Graduate University and public art at USC. “I think video is a very flexible medium that can accommodate people with an interest in performance, as well as conceptual art, narrative, and gorgeous imagery and music.”

The festival’s theme -- “How Can You Resist?” -- cuts a wide swath through family life and sexuality, economics and politics, consumerism and media.

The topics are heavier than Freewaves’ previous fare, but Bray felt that would be appropriate for the period around such a highly contested presidential election. The title itself is open to interpretation. “People are politically conscious and there is a lot of protest,” Bray says. “At the same time there’s the seduction of advertising and mass media imagery -- how can you not watch TV? Not see this ad?”

Curator Julie Lazar interpreted resistance in a more psychological way in the program she developed, titled “Inheritance.” The common thread to the five films is families, and the responsibil- ity each person has to the next generation.

One of Lazar’s choices, Natalia Almada’s short film “All Water Has a Perfect Memory,” depicts the effect that the drowning of Almada’s 2-year-old sister has on her multicultural family. “At the end,” says Lazar, “the mother voices her feelings of losing a child. This could relate to the experience we’re going through both in Iraq and the U.S. -- and anywhere else in the world where they’re losing children to war.”

Other curators came from India, China, Colombia, Turkey and Angola.

“It’s interesting to me that a small arts organization can now have global connections,” notes Bray, who also digitizes the selections to post on the festival’s Web page. “The work can come from all countries and through the Internet.”

With a budget of only $100,000, the festival gets big bang for its buck. It begins with a video art exhibition at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary this weekend. On Nov. 20, there’s a program of political documentaries at the community development organization SAJE (Strategic Actions for a Just Economy). The final day, Nov. 27, will buzz with interactive art in Chinatown, with artist-made karaoke videos, alternative video games and intercontinental music jams.

The festival within the festival -- nine slates of short films and videos -- happens Nov. 12-14 at REDCAT.

It begins with “Inter-State: Video on the Go,” a 51-minute pilot for a cable documentary series about artists.

This episode follows four L.A.-based artists whose work relates to cars. Director Juan Devis captured the mobile art gallery Ruben Ochoa built inside a delivery truck.

He also documented the hydraulic dancing Chevy Impala that Ruben Ortiz-Torres customized for an exhibition at the Getty. It’s a comment on Che Guevara -- that’s the model he drove around Havana -- and the politics of America and Cuba dating back to the Spanish American War.

“There’s a human interest story behind the work of these artists,” Devis says. “My intention was to create something between the serious, mystical approach of art-making and the total hip route of MTV’s ‘Cribs’ show.” He, of course, hopes Bravo or some such arts-minded network will come take a look.

For now, Bray puts it out there to represent -- as described in the Freewaves program -- “what TV could be.”

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LA Freewaves

9th Biennial Festival of Film, Video and New Media

For additional information, including descriptions of each program and directions, see www.freewaves.org or call (213) 250-3280.

Friday to Sunday: Video installations and projections at MOCA Geffen Contemporary, 152 N. Central Ave., downtown L.A. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. each day. Opening reception, Fri., 8-11 p.m. Free. (213) 626-6222.

Nov. 12-14: Screenings at REDCAT at Walt Disney Concert Hall, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. $10 per day. (213) 237-2800.

* Nov. 12: “Strip/Tease,” 7:30 p.m.; “The Power of American Imagery,” 9:30 p.m.

* Nov. 13: “A Taste of the Pain of Others,” 3 p.m.; “Inheritance,” 5 p.m.; “Freewaves TV”

Premiere: “Inter-State: Video on the Go,” 7:30 p.m.; “Untitled Engagement,” 10 p.m.

* Nov. 14: “Over and Above,” 5 p.m.; “Security Blanket,” 7:30 p.m.; “Postcards,” 9:30 p.m.

Nov. 20: “Globalize This!” at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, 152 W. 32nd St. (at Hill St.), L.A. Food from around the world, 6 p.m.; Breakdancers, 7 p.m.; Screening excerpts, 7:30 p.m. Discussion with filmmakers, 9 p.m. Live music and DJs from Tijuana, 10 p.m. Free. (213) 745-9961.

Nov. 27: “InterActions: A Selection of Interactive New Media Works” in the cafes, galleries and bars in Chinatown’s Central Plaza and Chung King Road, 900 blocks of North Hill Street and North Broadway, downtown L.A. Interactive videos, music, games and karaoke, 7-11 p.m. Late show by Animal Charm, 11 p.m.-2 a.m. Free.