There have been signs that have warned us of the coming end of analog television.   Of these varied signs, coupons, and converter boxes,  the message has been met with concern.   Not merely formal concern over analog versus digital image quality, but deeper set concern, for better and worse, over the possible afterlife of such dead and dying media. While we are now told the end has been postponed, there are those who obviously want us to know that time is running out.

Some have fallen into the trap of fearing being labeled a “conspiracy theorist” should they display an interest in analog receivers, obsolete electronics and other residual media.

Portland Oregonians may chance upon the scattered PSAs put forth by the Video Gentlemen around the city on February 17th.  Below are some other projects across the country–equally determined to give pause to the advancing end of television.  Many of these endeavors are being fulfilled now and many will be fulfilled in the near future.  The Video Gentlemen would like to encourage you to investigate this most monumental episode of forced obsolescence, know what is coming and be prepared to share it with others.

Funeral for Analog TV

End of Television

Virtual Memory Project

Reluctant to give up on ghosts, BYOTV offers undead media melees, haunted worlds, B-movie kitsch and chilling outlooks in Week Four. Iconic ghost-forms lingering on after the Atari age permeate the work of Shalo P., co-mingled with antennae-equipped aliens, otherworldly interference and creature features fading into the ether in an assortment from Jeffrey Sconce, Jeremy Newman, Carl Diehl, Deborah Stratman and others. Conspiratorial frequencies amp up with Ann Steurnagel, Tony Gault and explode in the epic “Spectres of the Spectrum,” Craig Baldwin’s speculative account of the New Electromagnetic Order charting the histories of telegraphy, radio, television and the Internet!

On Saturday April 19th @ 7pm, The Video Gentlemen present “Media Archeology,” the second in-studio live broadcast. Featuring techocultural curiosities, research and analysis, questions and answers from Stephen Slappe, Kate Mondloch, and YOU:

Static Age: The Early Years of Television Culture A presentation by Stephen Slappe
This program of archival 16mm films examines the early years of television as a technological and cultural phenomenon. The program includes behind-the-scenes glimpses at television studios as well as references to television in popular culture from the 1930′s to the 1960′s.

Look at This: The Problem of Participation in 1970s Video Installation
A presentation by Kate Mondloch

Look at This scrutinizes how media objects and their customary viewing regimes actively define the relationship between bodies and screens in media installation art. The talk complicates the notion of an inherently progressive, liberatory “spectator participation” that is celebrated in most accounts of media installation by detailing the ways in which screens are also capable of generating oppressive viewing conditions that strictly delimit the viewer’s interaction with the work.

Heading into week three, Nerve Theory is back with their dark humor, electronics soundscapes and curious visual metaphors. Reza Safavi re-tools familiar broadcast signals, while Alex Chechile, Bradley Hyppa, Jesse England and Lili White fashion new functionality from malfunction and electronic waste.

Madcap media medleys and a dislocating telepresent proximity amused and bemused 30 some attendants at last Saturday’s Eclectic Electronics live in-studio broadcast. Some more excellent documentation from an Alienated Hominid to be gawked at here

 

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