reenacttv.net: the dialogic process between participants, contemporary and historical television, and the archive

PJ Ellis

Research output: Contribution to journalConference proceedings published in a journalpeer-review

Abstract

The low-grade technical quality, production value and experimental nature of ‘new’ television’s web cam sites and YouTube-type mash-ups mirror early television’s ‘darkened stage’, single camera realised on the (literally) small screen and spirit of artistic endeavour. This is perhaps best exemplified in two early John Logie Baird works: the early experimental television drama such and the first ever UK tele-play: Pirandello’s The Man with the Flower in his Mouth (BBC: 1930) and Baird’s interactive television experiment between his studio at Long Acre and the Coliseum Theatre, featuring contemporary celebrities. While early television sought a technological escape from its limitations, the author believes that it is limitation (or constraint) itself, aligned with the current uncertainty of a ‘new’ television and its myriad of creative possibilities that might be harnessed as a resistance strategy to the demands of the market, as well as new artistic endeavour. The author will be reeenacting The Man with the Flower in his Mouth and the Coliseum Theatre experiment in 2010. The research function will be that they will facilitate the articulation of a new knowledge in relation to the dialogic process between participants and contemporary and historical television systems, both in terms of technologies and uses: political and social implications of the user-producer as ‘flow-er’. While these new modes of reception and distribution allow for a critique of the contemporary position of television use, the new technologies, through the process of reenactment, will allow us to revisit the past in an insightful way and engender an intellectual liberation of the flow-er. This research project evolved from a visit to the BFI archives in London to research details of The Man with the Flower in his Mouth. Indeed, knowledge of the Coliseum Theatre event came from the discovery of an article by Steve Hawle in Coil at the BFI, and the script for the broadcast was sourced from the BFI’s Special Collections. The proposal is that the paper will articulate the way in which the use of the archive has been catalyst and facilitator in creative practice and the development of a theoretical position through the bringing together of seemingly disconnected and disparate material. It is the intention that a period of time be spent at the BFI archive, contextualising the current research further and developing the body of the research, as well as seeking the kind of connections such as the Hawle discovery. The final paper will map how the use of the archive can be, in itself, a creative tool in contemporary arts practice.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages0
JournalDefault journal
Volume0
Issue number0
Publication statusPublished - 2010
Event1st FIAT/IFTA Television Studies Seminar - Paris
Duration: 14 May 201014 May 2010

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