Average TV

Noise

Average TV

Carter's Notes

Between 2006 and 2007 I had an automated project running in my studio that switched between cable television channels - CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC, UPN, WB, PBS, and NY1 (a New York news channel) - grabbing stills and blending them into an "average" of what was on television at any given time. Those stills would then be posted to this website every few minutes.

I found it interesting in a variety of ways. It emphasized the formal structure of the medium. It captured the way all channels were often broadcasting the same, or similar, images. And I enoyed the way averaging images causes them to soften, so that even the harshest news items become layered washes.