Some weekends tv is no longer the way we know it. It's something not easy to define, nor to describe. It is connected with computers, it goes both ways and it is produced with your home video camera and the old amiga computer.
It's not surprising that the Amsterdam Open Channel is becoming an avant-garde
experimental place for new technologies. From the start Amsterdam cable has
been the domain of early television hackers. When cable was introduced in the
Netherlands in 1978 to improve the quality of national tv signals, at night
pirates hacked the empty channels.
They were the sensation of TV. They offered programs that contrasted sharply
with the traditional TV programming. In the seventies home movies, porno and
experimental tapes appeared for the fist time on the Amsterdam TV. It was
during this time that many people, from punks to executives spent many a
sleepless night. Since hacking the TV channels was illegal, the cable company
had to develop a device to keep the hackers out. But the appetite for local
tv was raised, and protests were loud. Eventually this led to the decision to
start a Public Access Channel, with an organisation responsible for giving
various interests groups the possibility of radio and television access.
When the structures for local TV were developed some of the pirates became
regular programmers, i.e. Staats tv-Rabotnik, one of the most famous programs
on Amsterdam cable. Their anarchistic approach, sharp interviews and
underground style were the basis of a special cultural program.
Salto, the organisation handing out time on tv supported the widest possible
range of tv makers and groups in the city. Anything new gets priority and can
count on support and tv time. Therefore in Amsterdam the technical television
hackers find an open platform for experimenting on local tv.
House music, a telephone on the screen, a number. Someone has dialed and the program starts introducing TV 3000. You can now choose a number, it says, and on the screen there is a choice of 6 items. Visit the zoo, what's the time, make your own drum solo or play peeking whole. Direct the camera yourself, or play the fruit box. The caller pushes a number, and five places with clocks are revealed. We watch the time on a station clock, an alarm clock in the bedroom. The next caller selects the moving camera. By pushing the telephone buttons one can move the camera overlooking a square in the centre of Amsterdam.
Interactive television, we don't have to wait for the electronic superhighway to come about, that's the idea of TV 3000, a group of artists who develop different devises on interactivity. They have worked on entertainment programmed tv, to allude people to participate. They work with relatively simple equipment, and show with their programs no special device is necessary for the viewer, just use your telephone to make tv.
This is not hightech tv made by wizzkids, these are just a group of TV maniacs using their imagination, working with whatever is there. Since Amsterdam is a not a city for cars, the program became known as the 'bakfiets tv' because equipment, borrowed from different locations is often transported on a bicycle to and from the studio.
Hoeksteen Live has used consumer equipment from the beginning, making the
camcorder its main working tool. The video 8 camera's not only allow cheap
production but also great flexibility. With the improvement of TBC (Time Base
Corrector) and other processing amplifying equipment the signal of these
cheap cameras is good enough for cablecasting. Breaking the strict rules of
high quality standards makes production of television programming as simple as
making a phone call.
This has prompted a new approach for television: anyone can make television
anytime. Open access has taken a broader meaning since anyone can enter the
studio and contribute to the tv marathon. Frequently, viewers who are
agitated by discussions on their tv set come to the studio, meet the guests
in person, and broaden the discussion.
Hoeksteen Live has launched other projects along these lines: In the summer months, when most of the local telvision makers take a brake, 'Surveillance TV' has started. The studio is fed with one surveillance camera and a microphone, both are broadcasted live on cable. Anyone can come in and be live on television, from 10 p.m. till 10 a.m.
Pizza TV in Rotterdam is another option, bringing a preview of two-way interactive television made with homevideo's. In Rotterdam, the caller phones, orders, and performs. A 'Pizza boy', normally delivering pizza on a motorbike, now arrives at your door with a camera, and records the caller, and then returns to the studio. Sometime later the tape is aired on the Cable Channel.
Hoeksteen Live started as an artist run program where videoart libraries were cablecast throughout the night. During the event of N5M (Next Five Minutes), an international conference on tactical TV, held January 1993, Hoeksteen went live. Here they introduced an open studio concept throughout the night. This started a wave of live programs, cablecasted from hot spots in Amsterdam.
Telephone lines were always part of the program. Phone calls dominated the
night. After a few months the BBS was incorporated in the program.
Conversations over the net have developed as a parallel program with comment
on various items.
This has developed into a co-operation between computer users surfing the net
and television viewers in Amsterdam.
By its use of BBS the program became translocal because anyone from
anywhere in the world could log in and be live on Amsterdam Cable Television.
Some oversea connections became regular guests. The John Good
Gallery, New York City, contributed to every program via the BBS.
Normally during the Summer months (July and August) many of the local programmers stop the regular cablecasting. Since the summer of 1993 this period is used by some of the organisations involved in programming to produce a summer season. This has proved to be an interesting initiative. In the Summer of 1993 Inprik T.V. (Log in T.V.) was introduced in the summer months. Inprik T.V. consists of live cablecastings, (varying from 30 seconds to 4 minutes) with interviews, statements, performances and the like, especially developed for this television format. Inprik T.V. is inserted at regular intervals between the listings of Salto programming. This formula was later adopted for special events such as the local, national and European elections and the Amsterdam Art Fair 1993 and 1994.
A live interview with Derrick de Kerckhove, McLuhan Institute, Toronto, via
ISDN line on the t.v. screen is just ending. There is some confusion. The
camera searches for a new goal: the anchor woman walks over to the computer
where currently sent midi-files are being put on the screen. She then informs
the viewers that files can be sent via modem to the 'Digital City', the
Amsterdam freenet project (the city's experiment in civic networking). In the
meanwhile a group of composers in the studio reshape the midi files that have
just arrived into a new music piece.
On the screen you see the midi files placed on different locations on a map of
Amsterdam. Examples are being played. The program switches to an interview
with musician at Studio Steim, a state of the arts electronic music centre in
the Dutch capital.
The program ends by asking viewers to call and perform a drum solo by
touchphone. Each button hits a different drum.
Smart TV is a project that links television to the computer networks. It has
been developed alongside the opening of the Digital City, the freenet in
Amsterdam. Digital City has opened the
net to the Amsterdam public free of
charge. It is the first experiment in civic networking. As the name implies
it is modelled like a city with different areas. You can chat in the cafe, get
news from the news stand, and join discussions on different topics in new
groups in the public square. Other options are sending in midi files for a
shared music piece, designing logo's for the city and add to the radio play
in progress. Smart TV made several programs showing possibilities of Digital
City, explaining the net, and introducing artists, hackers and media
activists working in the net.
Their program showed not only text-based BBS but also digital images and
sound. In one of the programs of Smart TV radio was incorporated, joining
computer users, television viewers and radio listeners in one big spectacle.
The combination of all these channels simultaneously is the prototype for many
to many television...
Another direction goes Desk Top Television.
Desktop tv is a program completely run by an amiga computer. Artists are asked
to sent in short segments of computer animations.
On desktop you can also find pamphlets, texts, poets, plays from non-graphic
adepts. Soon this program wants to ad 'full automated services', like the
time, weather
report, traffic jam information etc.
A second initiative is reviving an old tradition in Amsterdam cable
television. The Home-Video Channel shows any video sent in by viewers, from
holidays, weddings to amateur fiction and home porno. This brings back the
first serious attempt to do cable television. At that time anyone could send
in tapes and have them played on the cable.
Until now Amsterdam Public Access has been one of the most innovative and varied tv channels in the world, combining media activists, visual artist, ethnic minorities, homosexual action-groups, religious groups, techno-tribes and others. All of this is possible because of the very low transmission fees and the open policies of Salto, the umbrella organisation that coordinates the local programs form the Amsterdam network, which attracted many media-lover to the stand of tv-producer.
Local cable radio and tv programming in the Netherlands is been made possible firstly because more than 90 % of the country is covered with cable. This has been a fruitful ground for the development of many different kinds of experiments. Also, the costs for the viewer are deliberately kept low, so everyone makes use of cable tv.
Many programs are made on professional equipment, such as betacam or u-matic
SP.
In this the public of Hoeksteen is different form the public of migranten tv,
who makes programs as professional as possible with their limited budgets.
They feel their audience wants to identify with a regular program having the
glamour of real tv, that is: well organised, good lighted studio's, no chaos,
and a regular news reader. All the cliche's of national tv.
The experimental programs are currently involved in integrating new
technology in tv programming. They are not alienated by new technology, nor
intimidated by the expenses and need of the latest fastest computer.
Their aim is to see for themselves, and not wait for commercial applications
of concepts like Interactive tv. The tradition of using consumer products has
proven fruitful also in this area. The simplest amiga computer has been found
worthy of use in projects like 'desktop tv': short computer animations on the
screen.
BBS lines were the start of many to many tv, on the live programs of Hoeksteen.
Combining two groups: BBS users, and fans of the live tv program. It made a
start with making local tv translocal. People from other cities log-in on the
system and talk to the Amsterdam viewer.
