Video Times

Video Times was realised for the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, in 1984, and consisted of a videotape and a printed publication. The videotape consisted solely of Atherton himself watching television, his face lit by the flickering glow of a cathode ray tube. In an era when we have become entirely acclimatised to “reality tv ” and have accepted mass surveillance as a normal and inevitable part of everyday reality, the prescience of this work is chilling. Whilst the videotape itself was of necessity mundane and hardly entertaining, the combination of publication and video was both conceptually acute and humorously accessible. A spoof on the popular weekly magazines “Radio Times” and “TV Times”, the booklet describes in minute detail the second-by second progression of the videotape. Whereas a tv guide magazine would provide a rundown of the weeks television schedule, along with short descriptions of the content of each programme , “Video Times” expands the time frame of a thirty-minute videotape, elevating each fleeting moment to the status of a programme . – Jeremy Welsh catalogue Article You Dont go into a Butchers and ask for a piece of Cod, Kevin Atherton/ Three Decades/ Three Works