The Polygon Gallery hosts An Oral History of Television With Judy Radul, September 18
Artist’s book and multimedia installation look at the evolution of the form through everything from Craigslist sales to the moon landing
Video still from Judy Radul’s THIS IS TELEVISION. Photo courtesy of the artist and Catriona Jeffries
The Polygon Gallery presents An Oral History Of Television With Judy Radul on September 18 at 7 pm
WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST memory of television? Could it be watching Saturday-morning cartoons as a kid, lounging on the couch in your pyjamas with a bowl of cereal in hand? Or perhaps walking past a department store and gazing at the shiny new sets behind a wall of glass?
Any way you look at it, televisions have exploded over the last century, both in popularity and in technological advancements. Artist, poet, and SFU professor Judy Radul, who splits her time between Vancouver and Berlin, acknowledges that with her 2018 book This Is Television. It unpacks and defines the form—which Radul rightly calls “increasingly obsolete”—by looking at its history and explaining how media continues to evolve over time.
Judy Radul’s book This Is Television.
One chapter called “CRAIG” includes images of analog TVs that were put up for sale on Craigslist back in 2013. Another, “LANDING”, details what television coverage was like in Germany when the Apollo 11 spaceflight landed on the moon in 1969. Elsewhere, “ORAL HISTORY” collects people’s thoughts and memories of television, capturing how the form has impacted our everyday lives.
The Polygon Gallery is hosting an evening called An Oral History of Television With Judy Radul on September 18, during which the artist will read from her book while improvising with live-edited text projections.
Radul’s research is also featured in her multimedia installation THIS IS TELEVISION, currently on view as part of the larger exhibition Star Witnesses at The Polygon Gallery. It premiered at Berlin’s DAADgalerie in 2013.
THIS IS TELEVISION will be on display in the Denna Homes Gallery until September 28. Limited copies of Radul’s novel are also available for purchase through the Diane Evans Bookstore. 
Related Articles
