Broadcast Yourself

A selection of TV and web-based works which demonstrates how artists have successfully challenged the dominant broadcast culture since the 1970s, complemented by a wealth of online content (see online content page, on the left).

Broadcast Yourself is a group exhibition that contextualises the current trend for sharing videos online through the presentation of artists’ video and TV from the 1970s,’80s and ’90s and more current web-based TV art. The exhibition reveals how artists have questioned the passive relationship viewers have with television by taking control of TV and the way it is both produced and consumed, challenging its cultural influence and exploring what it means to put oneself ‘on-air’.

The exhibition includes: - collaborative projects from 56kTV and TV swansong which demonstrate how the development of the internet and affordable web cameras gave artists the chance to create their own broadcast networks; - individual broadcasts of alternative news, like Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s guerilla webcast performances El Naftazteca: Cyber-Aztec TV in 1995, and Alistair Gentry’s ‘landing’ on Mars a decade later; - Active Ingredient’s MakeTV installation which allows audiences to be interviewed and streamed live online as though they were a celebrity; - Shaina Anand’s CCTV projects in India which demonstrate how artists continue to create their own systems to contest the fact that they have limited access to the technologies needed for television broadcast.

All the works in this exhibition revise our perceptions of broadcast television (from reality TV and soap operas, to the news and commercial breaks) while at the same time questioning our role in the creation of television culture. How we individually understand television will continue to change as new digital technologies expand the distribution of audio/video work on the web.

But, as the artists in this exhibition have demonstrated, it is possible for us all now to broadcast ourselves.

Broadcast Yourself

Künstler: 56k TV Bastard Channel, Active Ingredient , Shaina Anand, Ian Breakwell, Chris Burden, Stan Douglas, Alistair Gentry, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Doug Hall, Adriene Jenik, Wendy Kirkup, Chip Lord , Pat Naldi, Jody Procter, TV Swansong , Bill Viola