THE END OF TELEVISION: ARTIST ENTRY

THE END OF TELEVISION was a broadcasted artistic event. Essentially the event occurred when all televisions in the united states switched from analog television to a digital transmission. This change caused the analog televisions to become obsolete, however, Ian Page and a collaboration of artists found this change as a significant and useful time to collaborate and broadcast their own art. After the switch from analog to digital these artists broadcasted their own art on the analog signal within the Pittsburgh area. So, according to Rhizome, The End of Television was the only broadcasting program on Analog television at that time. I see this art piece as a type of appropriation. The artists appropriated the free space that the now obsolete analog television provided. Additionally, this art work is making a statement about the role of television in our lives. When you think about it, during the time of the switch there must have been a few people watching T.V. on analog televisions. They would have been watching a regularly broadcasted program and then suddenly would be thrust into viewing new media art in place of their regular program (i.e. a sports game). Additionally, there is this idea that many people had already switched to digital and so as THE END OF TELEVISION is playing and describing the pitfalls of T.V. millions of people will miss this program as the now obsolete and empty analog rambles on. I think this project is a great use of the empty space that analog would be taking up, and i think its neat to broadcast different new media artists' work. However, i think it would be great if the program continued...but because analog is obsolete now the artists' work might not be viewed. I also thought it was interesting that the program had pieces of art that highlighted problems with our society's habits of watching T.V. I think this should have been the essential part of the broadcast. It would be interesting if there was a posted video of the entire broadcast.

There is one part of the broadcast that caught my attention. The program featured a group called HiTEC, 5 mins into the video, which reminds me of a lot of the noise we here and see on television. I'm not sure if that was the intention of that part of the program.

LINK TO YOUTUBE VIDEO