Watching TV at the Royal Ontario Museum

The Institute of Contemporary Culture of the Royal Ontario Museum is proud to present the pioneering Canadian exhibition Watching TV: Historic Televisions and Memorabilia from the MZTV Museum. Since its founding in 1989, the ICC has sought to examine many currents of the culture of our time. Media have played a large role in our programming because of their central role in our age. In keeping with our mission to examine contemporary culture through the artifacts it produces, this unique collection of televisions allows a superb case study of the interrelationship of technology and society. The exhibition and publication offer a remarkable glimpse of the history of television as an integrated system of electronics manufacture, broadcasting, and mass culture.

Television evolved because of specific decisions made by experimenters and entrepreneurs. It is not a fact of nature. The exhibition allows us to become aware of the television set - a ubiquitous device that is hardly ever perceived as an object in and of itself. When we become conscious of the history behind the development of the set, we can be more appropriately attuned to the structured nature of our entire television experience. We become self-aware as consumers of television.

The ICC is pleased to present this exhibition in collaboration with the MZTV Museum. Home to the most important grouping of historic North American televisions ever assembled, the MZTV Museum collection was acquired over the years by Moses Znaimer. It provides a unique opportunity to examine the medium which has so profoundly altered human history.

It has been a great pleasure to benefit from the insight and intelligence of the MZTV Museum Founder and Chairman, Moses Znaimer. His act of creativity in beginning a museum of televisions is the sort of innovation for which he is justly renowned. Liss Jeffrey, Acting Director of the MZTV Museum, has overseen the scholarly content of the exhibit and contributed much energy to the project, as did Michael Adams, Administrator, and Gary Borton, MZTV Consulting Curator. Assisting from the MZTV Museum were Iain Baird, Sarah Casey, Liz Levine, Susan Norris, and Enzo Rondinelli. Dale Smith, Art Director of Citytv, designed the exhibition poster. Louis Fishauf, Creative Director of Reactor Art + Design, has designed this exciting and innovative publication for the exhibition, assisted by Kimberly Dolan, Graphic Designer of Citytv. The video material for the exhibition was created by Reid Willis, Producer/Director of MediaTelevision and his associates at Citytv. The MZTV Web Site was created by CityInteractive's Misha Glouberman and Davin Risk under the supervision of Josh Raphaelson. Thanks also to Apple Canada for supporting the MZTV Museum Web Site.

Our sponsors at SONY of Canada Ltd.: Ted Kawai, President; Patrick Wittingham, Senior Vice-President, Services and Engineering Division; Peter Hess, Senior Vice-President, Broadcast and Professional Group; Joel Clamen, Manager of Advertising and Creative Services; and the product managers for numerous systems have provided technical expertise in addition to the more usual form of sponsorship. We greatly appreciate the enthusiastic support of our Media Partners at Citytv, MuchMusic, and Bravo!, especially Mary Powers, Director of Communications and Promotion at City/Much/Bravo!.

My thanks go to the members of the Board of Trustees' Committee for the Institute of Contemporary Culture for their faith and assistance. I wish to recognize the many staff members of the Royal Ontario Museum and the ROM Foundation who make the programs and exhibitions of the ICC a reality. John McNeill, Director and President, and Florence Silver, Vice-President, Exhibits and Marketing, have fostered the development of the ICC, which would not function without Maureen Del Degan, ICC Assistant. For this project, it is especially to Stephen Petri, Chief Designer and Project Manager; Andrew Medley, Designer; Eric Siegrist, Graphic Designer; Steven Spencer, Interpretive Planner; Cara MacEachern and Gillian Conliffe, of the ROM Registration Department; Brian Boyle, Photographer; Sandra Shaul, Head of Publications; and Glen Ellis, Managing Editor, Publications, to whom I owe my gratitude.

Howard Creel Collinson