Funeral for Analog TV February 17, 2009

Join author Bruce Sterling, technology pundit Paul Saffo, and other special guests on the UC Berkeley campus to mourn the loss of our long time acquaintance, the Analog Television Signal. Born in the 1920's in San Francisco, the signal has been an integral part of all our lives, bringing us news of the rich, the famous, the politicians, the wars, the Apollo landings, the thrills of victory, and the agonies of defeat. While Analog Television has not been a good friend to us all, it has been important to each and every one of us. Analog Television is survived by its wife Digital Television, and its second cousin Internet Television. In a soap-operatic melodrama fit for TV itself, Congress has debated changing the official date for the switch to digital television; however this event will proceed on Feb. 17 because we prefer to bury a fresh corpse rather than wait for the walking dead to fall over.

Please bring your Analog TV for display and recycling, as we will stack the first 40 in memoriam to our life long friend. At the ceremony Paul Saffo will spell out the sordid history of the Analog TV Signal's life, the group Author and Punisher will perform the funeral dirge, and author Bruce Sterling will deliver the eulogy just before the analog signal winks out for the last time and the frequency wasteland is invaded by pirate TV artists. It's rare that the entire nation gets a specific date on which one major medium dies and is replaced by another. This event will be a scholarly and artistic reflection on the passing of one of the dominant mediums and cultural influences of the late 20th century.

Presented by: Long Now Foundation / Berkeley Center for New Media / Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

Official Website: http://bcnm.berkeley.edu/tvfuneral/