Watching Television
Watching Television was a welcome addition to this season's exhibition line-up at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Based on an exhibition presented at the Royal Ontario Museum from November 1995 through September 1996, Watching Television offers a look at television and its place in our lives over the past seven decades. How has television affected our lives? How has human history been altered through the influence of television? What lies ahead for television as a medium of expression and a mirror on our world? Most of us today have grown up with television as a constant companion. It has entertained us, shocked us, frightened us, and enlightened us. It has shown us to each other as a people - at our worst, at our most ridiculous, and at our very noblest and best. For good or ill, television tells the story of our world - of civilization. It brings us everything from in-depth documentaries on Scythian warrior graves to fast-paced music videos and children's cartoons. It brings us sports events, news flashes, heartwarming rescues and pictures of human despair. It shows us how to reupholster furniture, make quilts, build houses and fix plumbing. Its advertising attempts to show us what is most important to us culturally, socially and commercially, be it fast cars, fresh laundry, or medical research. Television is all this and more. Far more than a simple technology, it is a means of expression and a window on the world. When people cite social ills, they point to television as both cause and effect. Television violence begets real-life violence, some say; television violence reflects the violence that already exists in society, say others. To many of us, television is also our ticket to the world beyond our doors. It shows us places we may never visit, allows us to live vicarious lives of luxury and glamour, gives us a front-row seat to real-life dramas. It also allows us to step back and ponder what we see. Is it true? Why is it happening? Could we ever be involved in a similar situation? Are we glad or disappointed that the television screen is there to separate us and protect us from what we're watching? Central to the exhibition's content is the notion that television, contrary to what many critics often charge, is not an intellectual and cultural wasteland, but a vibrant medium of cultural expression. It is a medium which has changed as the world around it has changed, metamorphosing and adapting to its surrounding reality. Watching Television illustrates the development of television technology and design through the MZTV Museum's important collection of historical television sets and memorabilia. It also encourages us to consider the social and cultural importance of television, past, present and future. The collection of archival television sets is truly remarkable, presenting a stunning array of television technology from the 1920s through to the 1970s. Some of the pieces in the exhibition are one-of-a-kind; others will seem as familiar to you as the old couch you curled up on for Hockey Night in Canada, Les Belles Histoires des pays d'En-Haut, Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights - or for Johnny Carson after you'd snoozed through the late news.
In addition to the television sets and related memorabilia, the exhibition
shows us where television is headed. As Marshall McLuhan once said, new
technologies build on the technologies they supersede. In Watching
Television you will see how television technology and programming have
influenced today's
Watching Television gives those interested in technology a chance to peruse
the world's finest and most comprehensive collection of historical
television sets and learn more about the past, present and future of the
medium and its technology. For those interested in design, some of the
television sets are rare or one-of-a-kind pieces, including a lucite
television set produced to prove that television wasn't some kind of hoax.
For nostalgia buffs, the television clips running throughout the exhibition
and assorted memorabilia Television has touched the lives of almost everyone on earth. As you will learn in the exhibition, more than one billion televisions are owned around the world today. There are more televisions in use than there are homes with running water. In many countries, television even reaches into villages without electricity - villages where television is powered by car batteries. Without television, world civilization would be vastly different than it is today. For good or ill, even if we never watch it ourselves, television has changed our lives to an unimaginable extent. For a taste of how television has accomplished perhaps the single biggest revolution in human society since the Second World War - a phenomenon that has done more to create global understanding than anything else on earth. Watching Television: Historic Televisions and Memorabilia from the MZTV Museum - see where civilization is going, and not just where it's been.
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