This Is Television addresses the increasingly obsolete medium of television by way of the medium of the book, commenting on media's continuous changes of form and format. Through an interplay of theory and artistic research material, the book extends Judy Radul's ongoing investigation of
media with an idiosyncratic perspective on television—while still feeding off collective experience. The book thematizes television as a cultural container, both in its format as a box for content and as an ideologically saturated apparatus for reception.
With sections titled
Craig,
Oral History, Moon,
Display,
Landing,
End of Analog etc., the book charts our identification with specific media and a nostalgia connected with the obsolescence of technology. Springing from a desire to engage intermedia form by way of a
book about
television, and to commit to the ambiguity of its title's announcement,
This Is Television is organized around three central chapters: “This,” “Is,” and “Television” are individually interpreted in newly commissioned essays by Honor Gavin,
Ana Teixeira Pinto, and
Diedrich Diederichsen, with additional short texts by Judy Radul.
Over the years, the interdisciplinary Canadian artist Judy Radul (born 1962, in Lillooet, lives in Vancouver) has primarily worked with
video and film installation. Most recently, her video installations focus on questioning the “habits” of perception, blurring the boundaries between
theater,
performance, and
film.
