This Is a Television Receiver (1976)

Overview

Commissioned by BBC TV as the unannounced opening piece for their Arena video art programme, March 1976. Programme produced by Mark Kidel, conceived by Anna Ridley and presented by David Hall. 'Richard Baker [the well known newsreader] describes the essential paradoxes of the real and imagined functions of the TV set on which he appears. The second shot is taken optically off a monitor, the third copied from the second, and so on, until there is a complete degeneration of both sound and image, removing the newsreader from his position of authority...' - Tamara Krikorian, Art Monthly, February 1984.