George Fifield

The Electronic Canvas

"The Electronic Canvas" focuses on Boston as a major center in global movement where artists in the 1960s were drawn to the growing power of television and media. Viewers learn how these artists responded to the initial challenge of not being able to become creatively involved with television. The show looks at how cultural institutions and organizations responded to this challenge and what happened when the doors were opened to artists’ desires to probe this unexplored territory. From these early efforts and experiments, the program follows the rapid growth, diversification, and sophistication of video and media art from single channel works to complex pieces involving computer programs, museum video installations, and in the Internet. The Electronic Canvas aired in April 2001 on WGBH Channel 2 in Boston and then on public television stations nationally.