A Telling Vision

It occupied the place of honour in the living room. Large, dominant, unembellished, its pale maplewood construction melded with the rest of the room's decor. Before its illuminating glow, each night the family gathered for several hours of deep, visual hypnosis. Whether it was to laugh and cry with Olivier Guimond, to learn with Gaétan Montreuil, or to join with the sympathetic and endearing Bobino, we loved to gather in front of the television because it took us on an emotional roller-coaster. None of us would miss it, me least of all. It was the beginning of the 60s and I was experiencing my first real love, a crazy love I still feel today. Television changed my life, as it changed my life, as it changed the life of... well, an entire generation. As a child then as a teen, I remained glued to its reality, so closely that they said I'd ruin my eyes. But my vision is still 20/20 and I'm sure I've got the healthiest pupils in the city!

Despite the fact that television has shaped our lives and our society, broadened our culture, erased distances, and immortalized numerous great events of our time, it seems it is still misunderstood and maligned. A vast societal storehouse say some, a propaganda tool for the power elite say others, television has inarguably had an extraordinary impact on the evolution of our society over the last 50 years. However, its omnipresence in every household has made it a disposable, recyclable consumer good with no conservation value. We have conserved our old furniture, our antique radios, but the discarded television set has often been converted into a stage for a child's puppet shows, a wet bar, or simply relegated to the scrap heap. Now we've barely begun to conserve the cult objects of our society for their design and their historic value. The Watching TV exposition - the most serious analysis and exposition of the television to date - highlights one of the best marriages of the 20th century: the technological response to the human need to communicate. It illustrates the historic evolution to the television using more than 60 sets from the MZTV Museum collection against a news backdrop.

For many years now I've had the opportunity to find myself behind the television cameras and to contribute to the evolution of its style and content. The small screen has made me see the big picture. I've worked beside people of insight who have given television its sense of vision. It is even more pertinent than ever, as we approach the new century, to cast an eye towards the past in order to fully understand the meaning of the major changes that the small screen has brought with it. Our planet is coloured by the enigmatic window more than ever; unearthing its remains will allow many to better understand its real significance.

Pierre Marchand