Farewell to Analogue Television

[squirmelia]

The analogue television signal was switched off in London on Tuesday night and even though I don't even have a television set, that seemed terribly sad. In London, on Twitter, words such as "Ceefax", "Bamboozle" and "Teletext" were trending and people were getting nostalgic for Teletext, Digitiser, and so on. (Even though Digitiser finished years ago.)

I visited David Hall's End Piece that evening to pay homage. 1001 televisions laid in a large room, some already dead, but the rest simply playing static. It was a dark room, mostly lit by the glow from the screens. The sound of the static filled the room, the buzzing, the swarming, and gosh, it was loud. Wandering amongst televisions, I kept thinking there must still be one that was receiving a signal, and indeed, there were two with faces on, but that was just Stooky Bill.

There were all kinds of televisions lying in that room- pink, yellow, black, grey, and on the screens, the static that was played seemed to vary. I gazed into the screens, at the patterns and the colours, inhaling the scent of television, feeling quite emotional somehow, about the abandonment of analogue.

(Watch the exhibition on YouTube: David Hall's End Piece.)

Comments

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Stooky Bill appearing unexpectedly on a TV looks like something out of Doctor Who!

[whiteshadow.livejournal.com]

My TV no longer works as there is no digital connection to it ... I am just hoping that given this I will not need to buy a TV License this year . I still need the TV to play the DVD's but hopefully I won't have to pay for this!

[tlrmx.org (from livejournal.com)]

If you (and any other residents at the same address) never watch TV programmes when they are being broadcast (or you only do so when visiting someone else's property where they have a license) you can fill out this form and they'll stop asking you to buy a license.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/nln/index.aspx

[pplfichi.livejournal.com]

Also, you should legitimately be able to claim you don't own equipment capable of receiving broadcast television if you don't have a set top box.

[toadflax234.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it does seem sad.

[threebytesfull.livejournal.com]

I just watched that video again. At 2:19, everything just stops. It's not what I was expecting somehow - I had imagined they'd shut down on programme boundaries. To do it this way just seems barbaric. I'm idly wondering how old the switch-thrower was.