TV SCANNER (timepiece)*
TOM SHERMAN
[The following text is excerpted from a speech made by Tom Sherman at a stockholder's meeting of Automated Perspective Inc. in Toronto, June 12, 1998]
|
|
|
"You don't have to wear a TV-wristwatch to know how to keep time with television. We learn how to organize just about everything that happens in life by watching television, hundreds of thousands of hours of TV. There's a rhythm, a pace and a residual weight to television that stays with us like a phantom. This sense of TV-inertia allows us to follow the myriad of bare bones stories that flit in and out, in and out, in and out. We memorize these stories in their multiple, though formally restricted variations, over time.
"We learn to recognize all the slots that things fall into...the disaster zones, the funny stuff, the romantic parts, the creepy dangerous times when it is too dark or raw or stripped down--so fundamentally lonely...and yes,
we learn that it is time to buy new things--now it is time--they whet our appetites...we're really hungry...in fact we are told repeatedly that we are starving. We need a lot to survive. More than we'll ever know, we're told...
"Of course no one really watches television very closely. It is simply that noisy piece of furniture in the sitting room, in the kitchen, in the bedroom, in the airport bar, in the hotel. It organizes everything in
every space it plays. People turn their televisions on wherever they go. Television fills them in. It only takes a glance to get a sense of what's going on and then the TV sound dissolves into the recesses our of minds. It fills in all the quiet spaces.
"There is a kind of incessant march behind the screen, a parade of programming with the youthful energy of a school band on a sunny day. We've all got the best seat and this parade of television programming is so bright and punchy, with one surprise after another, seemingly forever. It is an endless stream, never letting up, nor spilling over.
"Every channel you choose to watch hides a universe of other channels--that's why it's good to have a TV SCANNER (timepiece), so you can watch 500 or 600 channels virtually at the same time...and of course it's even more important that you are free to ignore the messages of all these channels simultaneously. You want and need to be connected, to have access to everything, but at the same time you don't want to have to watch anything very closely.
"That is why we have developed the TV SCANNER (timepiece). It allows you to monitor but ignore hundreds of channels of television while you go about your business of shopping or touring or travelling. You can feel like you have your finger on the pulse of the planet while at the same time knowing you are really somewhere in your flesh and blood, feeling the gravity of the moment with your tired feet and your sweaty body.
"Take a moment to feel the busy signals far, far away. You can provide your own pictures as you glance around your immediate proximity, or as you close your eyes and travel through the universe of television provided by the TV SCANNER (timepiece). The buzz you sense is real. It's always there whether you choose to pay attention or ignore it, or both."
Tom Sherman
Automated Perspective Incorporated
New York/Toronto
June 12, 1998
*Unfortunately at present more than four hundred of the channels currently scanned by the TV SCANNER (timepiece) are emanating from North America, mostly in the English language. We have made our international satellite channel selection based on signal quality and international frequency allocation criteria. We have also based our available spectrum of content on subscription audience preferences in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle-East.
FROM THE KUNSTRADIO ARCHIVE:
TOM SHERMAN: "The Grand Tour"
TOM SHERMAN: "Wordwatch Systems Incorporated Watches What You Say"
TOM SHERMAN: "10 Minutes of Tom Sherman's Voice"
TOM SHERMAN: "PERSONAL HUMAN" |
|
|
