911 Media Arts Center's WINDOWS program opens its 1991 season with Daneille's Nightmare, an interactive video/audio installation concieved and produced by Seattle video artists Debla and Kurt Geissel. Five scenes in adjacent storefront windows will feature mechanized televisoin sculptures and related video with soundtracks.
The "TV" is held with reverence in most American households-it is often on a pedestal in an alter-like fashion, and its iconic qualities are obvious. The Television as modern-day idol is confronted in these works as the acutal form and content of the television set is modified, and the environment in which it is usually associated is dislodged by the public nature of the site.
In addition, The TV's are given life-like menacing qualities that imply their overwhelming control and power in the culture. Pedestrian and motorists will hae to interact with these TVs, destroying their normally passive "couch potato" role and establishing a more inter-active relationship between themselves and Television as both physical icon and cultural phenomenon.