From: Amanda Christie (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Aug 14 2010 - 14:04:35 PDT
this may or may not be of interest...
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I currently have a performance / loop installation about the end of
analogue television transmissions... it's not something that's ever
been broadcast, nor is it intended for broadcast... it's more of a
gallery installation... so it might not be at all what you're looking
for, but I figured I would throw it out there just in case.
It's called "Last Days of Snow"
(snow as in static on a TV)... and it's about the last days of over
the air analogue television transmissions which are scheduled to end
in Canada on August 31, 2011.
I began a month ago, and will continue until the transmissions end. I
am doing a series of 'performances' with a little battery operated
portable black and white TV. I simply video tape myself and this
little TV in various locations (bars, diners, cafes, train bridges,
sides of the highway, forests, etc) waiting for the transmissions to
end. so the installation is a bunch of old black and white
televisions playing these video images of myself and this portable TV
that barely gets a signal. In the video loops I'm generally just
sitting next to the TV, looking bored... waiting... drinking a beer,
having a coffee, watching the trains or the traffic, etc. etc.
sometimes messing with the rabit ear antennae in an attempt to get a
better signal... It's an ongoing project, but I have one version of
it up and installed at a gallery right now (coming down tomorrow), and
it could be installed in any variety of formats.
I'm starting to take this little TV with me everywhere I go... just to
get as many video clips of myself and the TV waiting for the end as
possible. Ironically... I'm shooting on HD... then downconverting to
SD black and white and displaying it on old CRT TV monitors...
This "Last Days of Snow" installation is currently paired with (but
does not always need to be paired with) another installation called
"Last Days of Cinema" which is about the decline in 35mm film
projectors in cinemas, as well as in the decline of unique and
spectacular cinemas in the face of digital technologies and
homogenized multiplexes... going the 'movies' is no longer the
spectacle it once was... so that installation (Last Days of Cinema) is
a double video projection of images that I shot on video when I was
working as a film projectionist... walking through the hallways and
projection booths of the Tuschinsky theatre in Amsterdam.... all those
unrestored bits that were not open to the public, but through which
projectionists walked every day. It's pretty dark and noisy imagery,
because I didn't really have 'permission' to shoot... I just brought
in a handycam with me on one of my last days of work and documented my
routes through all of the unrestored hallways, stairways, tunnels,
etc. the dark video noise adds to the sense of demise and hidden
secret spaces in dark rooms.
anyhow... back to televsion... "last days of snow" ... it might not
relate to what you're programming for "auteur" television... because
rather than putting work "on" television... i am putting the
television "in" my work... and my use of the television is more about
it's technological apparatus (cathode ray tubes and over the air
analogue transmissions) rather than mass media televisual content.
I'll be posting some still images on my website soon.
Amanda
(from the booming metropolis of sackville... 5,000 people and 1
traffic light!... i don't know why i find that so amusing)
I'll paste the 'official' description of the installations below this
dotted line in case you're interested.
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Last Days of Snow is inspired by the impeding death of analogue TV and
the snowy static that goes with it. Within the next year, all
broadcasts of analogue TV will come to an end, and will be replaced by
digital TV signals. For those who don’t have a digital conversion
box, this means that their old TVs with antennae will no longer pick
up signals. For those with the new digital TV conversion boxes this
means that they will no longer get static or snow when the signal is
weak – the channel will either be on or off. For this performative
installation, Christie has travelled with a battery powered portable
black and white TV picking up a mixture of snowy static and TV
channels; an activity that will no longer be possible in the next year.
Last Days of Cinema mourns the loss of celluloid projection in the
face of digital technologies. More and more movie theatres are
replacing their film projectors with HD digital projectors, some of
which are linked up for satellite feeds. The material object of the
film print is fast becoming a rarity. In those movie theatres that do
continue to project from celluloid, many of them no longer employ
professional or unionized projectionists. Instead, they have
computerized systems that allow the popcorn and ticket vendors operate
the projectors, which saves the theatre the expense of hiring actual
qualified projectionists. The video footage in this installation was
shot when Christie worked as a projectionist in a ninety year old
theatre in Amsterdam. The videos document her route from projection
booth to projection booth through both old and unrestored sections of
the theatre as well as through fully modernized and computerized
sections.
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