I am sitting back on my bed, laptop connected to a 20 metre ethernet cable to provide me with sweet, sweet non-wireless long range internet goodness, watching channel 802 on Foxtel digital which is showing the band Regurgitator record their 5th album live 24 hours inside a glass fishbowl in the middle of Taylor Square, Melbourne.
I am no fan of reality tv, especially of the Big Brother variety, but this is great TV. Watching a group of artists in the process of creation is riveting. Seriously. Watching the drummer trying to get the right sound out of a snare, twiddling this, snarfing that and padding the other. Watching the producer and studio assistant arranging baffles and cords so that the lead singer sounds just right is fascinating.
Jabba, a cable TV presenter who has been locked in the bubble with the band for the whole three weeks, will be murdered by the rest of them by tommorow night (they entered a couple of days ago). He is great value, but completely insane. I met Jabba once, way back when I worked for a music magazine. He has a perpetutal stoned/coked personality which is fun for about 3 minutes, then isn't.
But by far the most amazing moment was when I found myself watching the group watching a replay package of themselves on the array of nine or so widescreen plasma tvs. It was truly surreal. I once wrote a short story (I wonder where it is now) that had a guy flipping between the 6 billion channels on tv, each a live transmission of someone else's life. He came across a channel that showed a strange swirl of colours. He called to his wife to come quickly and see the strange channel. She realises immediately that he is watching his own channel and the swirls are video feedback. We are not far off that.
However, I am really enamoured with this idea of live, 24 hours, television channels devoted to creation. I look forward to being able to flip between channels showing the live creation of a movie or an orchestra rehearsing or of a blog being written.
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