Transmission: Legacies of the Television Age
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) presents the exhibition Transmission: Legacies of the Television Age.
The exhibition focuses on the significant impact that television has had on contemporary culture through its extended penetration into living rooms across the globe. More specifically, the exhibition explores artistic comments on the medium and showcases the evolution of screen culture from televised historical moments like war through to the rise of the Internet.
Featuring more than 30 works including primarily videos, the exhibition also features prints, photographs, fashion garments, sculptures and collage, which travels through Australian and international artists’ reaction to and involvement with television, sets and screens, visual broadcasting and the transmission of information.
Through these works the exhibition explores the power and influence that television broadcasting has had on politics and society. Globally historic events including the Vietnam War and 9/11 were viewed simultaneously on screens across the world. A video installation by Australian artist Elvis Richardson entitled Now 7 Years Later (2008) will be on display examining the experience of 9/11 through the memories of those who witnessed the event unfold on television. Also on show will be Australian artist John Immig’s photographs of the Vietnam War television coverage, which came to be known as the TV War.
Besides political and war-related events Transmission also explores television as a distributor of pop culture and consumerism. Among others the work of Australian artist Darren Sylvester entitled You Should Let Go of a Dying Relationship (2006) explores pop culture through music videos restaged by Sylvester for artists such as David Bowie and Kate Bush.
Transmission will be on display at NGV International in Melbourne, Australia from Friday 15 May to Sunday 13 September 2015. An electronic book will accompany the exhibition and will be available from NGV’s website. The book includes an essay by exhibition curator Maggie Finch and a number of multimedia elements.
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