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Davidovich does not fail to notice that there is a kind of art in the mall which, unlike the big artistic displays, is "on" or "hot", namely, kitsch. But how is one kind of art which is "off" in such a space, supposed to compete with an art like kitsch which is so decidedly "on" in the very same space? And do we not see the juxtaposition of these art works the very relation Plato pointed to, that of real versus fake art? What Plato didn't ask, and what Davidovich considers, is why space is divided in such a way that the kitsch becomes visible at the cost of all other sorts of art. Why is art being "switched" on and off in certain spaces, and to what degree does such an ability to "switch" art depend upon an alliance with kitsch? The underlying implication, of course, is that television itself as a medium can't be fully turned "on" without drawing support from the phenomenon of kitsch. These are fundamental issues which "The Live! Show!" raises in terms of its relation to society in general, and this in turn raises the not so obvious point, which is at work in "The Gap," that the Long Beach mall is itself a striking metaphor for the economics of space that is commercial television. 

In video art's being made in the mall one senses what it is like for video art to take place on the turf of television. For like the mall, television is not a space conducive for turning us on to any art besides kitsch, which is to say, mass produced consumer arts and crafts. The well known paradox, of course, is that, like television, kitsch is mass produced and therefore lacks uniqueness or what the social critic, Walter Benjamin, called "aura." And yet, despite this lack, the kitsch object, like television, arrogates a strong illusion of presence through its ubiquity, its mass production. What we notice today, however, is that commercial television is not merely a space in which commodities are electronically reproduced in order to subvert any non-commercial social relation to objects, but that commercial television is itself a commodity form with a very narrowly defined understanding of presence. In fact, as Davidovich points out, this narrow definition runs exactly parallel to the presuppositions set up in any large shopping mall between what is "on" and what is "off." 

In producing "The Live! Show" Jaime Davidovich had to come to terms with the conditions for the reception of art and how those conditions determine and reflect art's ontological status as present or absent. Commercial television, he realized, was wholly indebted to the idea that video, is like God, always