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POST-VIDEO I: THE SATELLITE

DOUGLAS DAVIS

What is the goal of post-video video? To go beyond itself, both physically and intellectually. To emerge from the discovery of the medium's self and all its neglected, ignored wonders. To spirit those wonders away on a new journey beyond the tube in the existential sense. It is time, in fact, to forget video, and by forgetting, remember it.

Remember, among other things, the extraordinary pre-modern thrill of watching the world's parts move together, in real time, on the screen? It happened long, long ago, in the early 60's, on one of the first broadcasts to flash that memorable credit, at the bottom of the screen: LIVE VIA SATELLITE. In my mind's eye there is this quick cut: from Eskimos in Alaska, to wheat fields in Iowa, to a rice farmer in Japan - from very cold to very hot, in an instant. Our attention was called to this miracle, this visual hop across thousands of miles of space and time, by the speaking voice-over. That doesn't happen any more. We accept the leap as a matter of course: we watch a New York sportscaster keyed over the Olympic marathon, in Italy, talking. The miracle is kept hidden, invisible, and our attention is commanded not by the rough miracle of space/time transfusion, but by the easy slickeries of the professional network trade; "Let's go to Rome, now, and watch the last mile."

But it is still a miracle, however suppressed. Like the miracle of a photograph, or a child's drawing. We can reach across the world as easily as we reach out to shake a hand. When I had the rare chance to perform via satellite - thanks to the Documenta VI exhibition, in 1977 - I asked an artist friend in Caracas, Venezuela to do just that, to hold up his hands on the screen in front of me as I performed live, in Europe, and I tried to break through and reach him. It was and is a miracle, [[italics]] at the core [[/italics]]. What distracts us from the magic of these simple acts - the hands spanning an ocean across a tiny screen, the light falling on the sensitized film inside the camera, the child's small fingers making complex diadems with the pencil - are the commercial hucksters who perfect a surface gesture, transforming the screen, the negative, the drawing, into an empty bravura gesture, into spectacle rather than substance.

So please understand this irony, immediately, as I lay out all these extraordinary possibilities before us: to restrain them ... is to unleash them.

Thing about this:
THE SATELLITE IS FALLING INTO THE HANDS OF THE ARTIST. HIS AUDIENCE IS ALREADY PREPARED TO RECEIVE HIM. IT IS NOT THE NBC, CBS, ABC AUDIENCE (THOUGH IT COULD BE). DRIVE DOWN TO THE CORE POSSIBILITY: THE TINIEST CABLE TELEVISION SYSTEM CAN NOW AFFORD TO RECEIVE SIGNALS FROM THE SKY - A CONSORTIUM OF MUSEUMS, SCHOOLS, OF GALLERIES, EVEN A SMALL TOWN: A SYSTEM TO WHICH 1,000 MEMBERS SUBSCRIBE CAN BUY AN "EARTH STATION" FOR A PER CAPITA COST OF $30.

Yes, Sputnik was the first satellite. But Telstar was the first "geosynchronous" communications satellite, put in orbit 22,300 miles from Earth, as calculated by Arthur C. Clarke in 1961: out there Telstar revolves around us in precisely 24 hours - that is, never moving from its spot in relation to us. (Because we, too, are orbiting in 24 hours.) But. None of the early satellites under the control of COMSAT were used for domestic or national transmission, only international. [[italics]] Until 1974 [[/italics]], all the big networks were made possible by expensive long-line telephone cables only.

Why do we now have "DOMSATS" (domestic satellites)? Because Richard Nixon - of all people - decided that the Federal Communications Commission should declare an "open skies" policy. This means that now [[italics]] you [[/italics]] can get an OK from the FCC to launch a communications satellite if you can prove that you have the money and the technical expertise to do so. Since 1974, the advantage has been seized by Western Union, RCA, NASA, and several other multinational, multi-wealthy corporations. The NASA satellites are primarily experimental. The Western Union-RCA satellites are there-for-profit.

But.

The sudden arrival of access and time allowing the far-flung, decentralized, grassroots CATV systems (about 4,000 separate stations by now), to connect with each other in live, real time. Coincident with the "open skies" decision, the FCC has already lowered its rigorous requirements for both send-receive and receive-only Earth stations. Once nearly 100 feet in diameter and costing millions of dollars, the 'present tense' Earth stations can be as small as 3 feet in diameter, as cheap as $10,000. The Japanese have a prototype satellite receiver for $1,500. And beyond that...a satellite receiver for your television set...costing $200. ("I've seen it," a friend told me, "and it's ghost-free.").

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Glorious anarchy. The end of centralized, controlled networks with few sending, everyone receiving. The beginning of a multiple-send, multiple-receive system. Eclecticism. Post-Modernism. Post-Minimalism. The Post-Network Network.

ALREADY. There are 800 receiving Earth stations scattered around the U.S., linked up with 5,000,000 CATV homes. It is...an [[italics]] invisible [[/italics]] network. That the arts, medicine, education, and more...can reach. A premise: no means of instant, linking communications like this...should be restricted to prime-time entertainment. Alone.

ALREADY RCA SATCOM I is transmitting CATV signals throughout the country, from Home Box Office (first-run movies) to Atlanta's Channel 17 (first-run sports) to an extraordinary variety of religious groups. (One of them broadcasts the Christian message, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.)

On March 19, 1979...the House of Representatives...sends a signal from the floor to RCA 1 down to...every cable television station that wants the signal, all day long, as long as the House meets. Forever after.

THERE IS NO PUBLIC INTEREST SATELLITE. Owned by the public. Open to non-profit educational-cultural-emergency messages. But [[italics]] meanwhile [[/italics]]. We can reach the satellite through PBS, through cable television, even though...Public Access. Not that long ago, Automation House transmitted a "local" cable television show (Helene Zimmerman's "Information Unlimited") directly from 68th Street in Manhattan to the Western Union transmitter in Greenwood, N.J., to the Westar satellite to THETA cable in Los Angeles - the first transmission of its kind. The cost (prime-time, 30 minutes, 7:30-8:00 p.m., in New York, 10:30-11:00 in Los Angeles): $300.

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