A Pro Helvetia and Xcult Project

bastard channel is a cross between a television and a web project, a platform in the Internet that tells the story of itself as a television channel. The channel works with the lowtech and financial means of network art and has collaborators on four continents. Its programme can be received all over the world.

On 18 November 2004, bastard channel will be celebrating its start with six programmes within the framework of the Viper Media Festival in the Basel Kunsthalle. By the spring of 2005, new programmes will have been added every month. The participants are artists from Basel, Berlin, Geneva, Johannesburg, New York, Ostrava, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo and Zurich, as well as collaborating text writers, translators, programmers and graphic artists.

It will not be possible to receive all the bastard channel programmes at all times, for our online project operates according to the television programme structure. Trailers will provide information about the times of day and night when you will be able to receive the next programmes in your part of the world. Whereas the terrestrial television stations are working on making it possible for programmes to be broadcast online independently of times and dates, bastard channel is set on limiting consumption: we do not want our programme to be available all the time, and we take the opportunity of wagging a cautionary medial forefinger at the "zap & surf attitude".

bastard channel is intended to reflect the web as a time medium. This is a cross between the babbling TV promises and the hesitant web response of a 56k modem. Some of our programmes are run like films, animating the screen at a breakneck pace, others step intentionally on the brake, tempting and frustrating at one and the same time. Still others bring streams of data onto the screen or make interaction offers where the public can spend 30 minutes or 30 seconds. At bastard channel, even the TV test pictures are interactive, and viewers receive personal answers to existential problems from the Television Sphinx - without, however, knowing whether they will receive a written or spoken answer from the Sphinx herself or her intelligent robot within two to three days.

56kTV - bastard channel has its own programme magazine. International authors from the worlds of the film, art and the media sciences comment on the TV project and the individual programmes, thus enriching the audio-visual online offer by a print & read version. We are investing in a good visual concept and leaving the print-on-demand to our public, since the TV magazines can be printed on every home printer.

Invitation
On the occasion of VIPER Basel, 18. - 22. November 2004, the Arts Council of Switzerland Pro Helvetia and Xcult will launch the online art project 56kTV-bastard channel in the Basel Kunsthalle.
We are happy to invite you to a reception held at the Basel Kunsthalle on Saturday, the 20th November at six o’clock p.m. Welcoming address by Rudolf Velhagen, head of the department Visual Arts, Pro Helvetia, Arts Council of Switzerland.

credits

56kTV - bastard channel is initiated and supported by the Pro Helvetia Arts Council of Switzerland and realised by xcult.org.

Artists (status 9.04) > biographies
Beat Brogle, Berlin and Philippe Zimmermann, Zurich
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, Seoul
Shu Lea Cheang, nomad artist living in Europe having grown up in New York
Yan Duyvendak, Geneva / Barcelona
Exonemo, Tokyo
Jimpunk, Paris
Birgit Kempker, Basel
Marc Lee, Zurich
Monica Studer / Christoph v d Berg, Basel / London
Jiri Suruvka, Ostrava /Cz
Nathalie Novarina / Marcel Croubalian, Geneva

Texts: (status 9.04)
Inke Arns, author and curator in the range of media art, Berlin
Roman Kurzmeyer, curator and art expert, Basel
Guido Graf, author, Jarlingen
Max Bruinsma, art- and design-theoretician, Amsterdam
Rudolf Velhagen, director of the department of visual arts at Pro Helvetia, Zurich
Tsutomu Okada, curator-in-chief at the Spiral / Wacoal Art Center Tokyo
Vinzenz Hediger, professor at the Institut für Medienwissenschaft, University of Bochum
Rebecca Picht, co-director of the Media Festival Viper, Basel.

Project idea: Storz / Studer / v d Berg (xcult.org)
Graphic design: Martin Woodtli, Zurich
Conceptual advice and interface programming: Urs Hodel, Zurich
Staging: Claudia Güdel, Markus Schwander, Bernardo Tribolet, Basel
Project curator: Reinhard Storz (xcult.org)

Acknowledgement:
We should like to thank the Kunstkredit Basel-Stadt and the Christoph Merian Stiftung for their generous support

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