We interrupt your regularly scheduled program
Sauter
January 2003
As the television is flickering a computer program is creating pixels of each frame. The light from the screen glows onto the wall and the sound of the flickering bounces off the walls. The line shown in the image above are the pixels from the television. This same effect occurs with any channel, show or event yet all the pixels look different. Looking at the stream of pixels is like looking at a distorted timeline of this articular television’s history. It is as if the television’s life is flashing before its eyes which is something people associate with someone in a near death experience. This piece is interactive as well so visitors can change the channel to get different kinds of projections.
Visitors using the remote control to change channels is an example of what Erkki Huhtamo was talking about when he said “systematic interaction”. Yet this piece is still functions with out visitors interacting so vistors can simply be spectators.
This piece is thought provoking and that is enough for me to find it spectacular. It seems atmospheric as well with the sound of the television, the flashing lights, and the projection of pixels. The interactive aspect of it makes it even better. Not only can you stand here and experience it but also partake in controlling one part of the artwork to your liking.
This work seems like a kind of meta-interactive piece because it places a familiar interface (the remote control/TV dial) in an entirely new context to make a comment on the idea of interactivity itself. Your comment about the television's life flashing before its eyes is a good observation and it makes me think: could this be also be the artist's understanding of the end of this particular technology?
Fun fact – Daniel Sauter used to teach at UIC! Great insight! The relationship between death and technology is a really potent topic to bring up. For example, Facebook and other social media entities have had to decide what to do with profiles of people who have passed away. If the television is having a near death experience, where does that place the spectator by controlling the images in that experience?