Cathode Ray Clinic #1
A TV project by Joshua Decter.
{crisis scenario}
Imagine the world without television.
What would your life be like? Who would you be? How would things look? No more
Saturday morning cartoons, MTV, Dan Rather, Home Shopping Network, football,
The World Series, late-night stripper shows, I Dream of Jeannie re-runs, cereal
commercials, Star Trek, Bill Moyers, Seinfeld, Public Access, BET, Court TV,
The Simpsons, The Weather Channel, CNN, David Letterman, or whatever else turns
you on. Suddenly, it will all have been turned off; we would have been turned
off. Television would become a strictly contraband drug, as the already entrenched
mass addiction, the great tube habit, clamored for satisfaction.
{remedy}
Cathode Ray Clinic #1 is a therapeutic context, a place where TV is prescribed
to "fix" the addiction that television itself created. No longer
an over-the-counter drug, regulated exposure to TV now becomes the only prescribed
remedy for the debilitating effects of chronic media withdrawal. Feed the
deprived mind, and then deprive the fed mind, until the addiction is overcome
or transposed.
As you eat TV, TV will eat itself, eating you! Cathode Ray Clinic #1 is not
only a framing device for television viewing, but also a diagnostic tool
that has all the answers.
Comprised of two TV viewing structures, and a multimedia computer/television
workstation, CRC #1 is conceived as a site where you can absorb the energies
of media, and engage in the endlessly disjunctive narratives of communication
and information that television naturally offers. Squeeze the remote, and watch
the tube until you're satisfied. There are no prohibitions in CRC #1 --- only,
more freedom than you know what to do with.
CRC #1 brings back the pleasure, bathing you in the ethereal glow of the cathode
ray. Here is the therapeutic answer to your TV-deficiency problem. When you're
aching for some channel-surfing, CRC #1 will provide you with a sufficient
dose. And, as a souvenir, you can take away a TV screen-shot of your choice,
a picture of a picture, a trace of the multimedia computer/television experience.
{Stay tuned: Cathode Ray Clinic #2 is coming to your area soon.}
Joshua Decter is a New York-based critic, curator and cultural historian who
does not apologize for his love of television. His recent exhibition, Screen,
held at the Friedrich Petzel Gallery, offered a negotiation of painting and
television through video. Mr. Decter is currently organizing an exhibition
entitled, a/drift: scenes from the penetrable culture, for the Center for Curatorial
Studies Museum, Bard College. He teaches at the School of Visual Arts, New
York University, and will be conducting a course this summer on television
culture at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
Thanks to Big Room for cooperating in the viewing station design.
Send mail to info@apexart.org with
questions or comments about this web site.
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