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Three-Penny Opera, shows Out-of-the-Body Travel, a piece made for television. The May 22 segment is followed by an illustrated commentary by the artist on his work.

"What we are trying to do," says Jaime Davidovich, Soho TV's Executive Director, "is to give the avant-garde artist a first-class showcase and, at the same time, build an audience that will appreciate the work." To accomplish this, Soho TV plans to air video art, dance theater, talk shows, interviews and music - the last to be simulcast over WBAI. Some of the works are videotapes that were produced by artists on their own; others are new works produced by Soho TV with and for the artists.

Most of the programs slated for the show are in color, and most of the image quality is good. "We are trying to present the best of a broad spectrum of mediums and styles and ideas current in the contemporary art," says Karen Mooney, Soho TV's Program Coordinator. "In addition, we are choosing programs that are suitable for presentation on the home screen of a sophisticated but not necessarily art-oriented audience. This also means that the works we show must have adequate technical quality to be transmitted intact over cable TV." For the "not-necessarily-art-oriented audience," Soho TV also provides a brief biographical comment at the end of its programs. 

Soho Television is a project of the Artists Television Network, an organization that grew out of an earlier group called Cable Soho. Starting from scratch, Cable Soho produced and showed several programs on Manhattan Cable's public access channels in 1976 and '77, including a program of contemporary music, produced by Jude Quintiere and simulcast on WBAI; a two-way television experiment with Douglas Davis; and Jean Dupuy's Artists Propaganda. However, as Cable Soho was essentially a consortium of arts organizations and independent artists, it lacked a centralized organization that would insure its continuity. Accordingly, last summer, the existing participating organizations and artist reorganized to create the Artists Television Network, with almost all the members of the original organization either remaining on the board directors or joining an advisory board. 

"We feel we're at the right place, at the right time, with the right thing," Davidovich says. "Artists' television is ready for showing. Even before we have put on our first show, we are finding people receptive to the idea, to the shows, to our plans. We are bringing a new dimension to cable, and we will eventually bring individual shows to public television as well. It's not that artists' work hasn't been shown on TV before, but we are adding the dimension of professionalism without erasing the element of sensitivity to the artist's intent. We think the combination is unbeatable and we expect to prove it in the coming months." 

The Soho Weekly News April 20, 1978  57