Welcome to AV Festival 08

The theme of the AV Festival 2008 is Broadcast and it is impossible to imagine anything more appropriate.

We have entered a momentous year. Television is a medium that never stands still but the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting marks a fundamental change. Opportunities will surely arise but do unseen dangers lurk?

Digital transmission, as we know, opens up the possibility of an enormous number of broadcasting choices. Increasingly, the act of passive viewing is becoming anachronistic as we are encouraged to
interact, even to broadcast ourselves on websites such as YouTube.
Whatever the future might hold, the year is awash with causes for reflection. It’s funny how anniversaries seem to come in convoys like those proverbial, long- awaited buses.

John Logie Baird drew the designs that would lead to colour TV 80 years ago. Fifty years ago, the Chinese — the biggest captive audience on the planet — got their first national TV service (something to remember while joining the billions who will watch the Olympic Games in Beijing).

And on the radio, not only is it 70 years since Orson Welles terrified America with his dramatisation of The War of the Worlds, it is 110 years since HG Welles’ novel was first published.

All these landmarks will be considered, recreated and reflected upon during a festival which spans 10 days in a region encompassing the AV hotspots of NewcastleGateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough.

Some of the most interesting and influential artists, thinkers, educators and innovators will be descending on the region during the festival. Others reside here already — understandable when you consider the increasing reputation of the North-East as a place of
cultural innovation.

Online here you will find details of the many exhibitions, installations, broadcasts, lectures, discussions and events which form AV Festival 08. It is shaping up to be one of the defining events of a year which is still young. Please make the most of it.

David Whetstone,
Arts Editor,
The Journal

 

Read the Director's introduction to the Festival to find out more
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