From Mister Fantasy to Immagina: electronic art in tv

Abstract

During the Eighties, electronic art entered Italian television with title sequences, adverts and bumpers, renewing the graphic look of images which had been in colour since only a few years before. However, as artists and theorists denounce, little space was given to broadcast and vulgarize works of video art and computer art, although television would have been their natural fruition medium. Some programs, broadcasted on Rai Uno and born around the cult of video and new technologies, are an exception in this context. Mister Fantasy (1981-84) originated as a program devoted to the “music to be seen” (the novelty of music video) and over the years it payed more and more attention to visual art, also showing the videos of one of the first and most promising Italian computer art groups: Crudelity Stoffe. Similarly, Non necessariamente (1986-87) broadcasted Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici computer videos and, boasting the definition “techno variety show”, used graphic effects in an experimental and dynamic way. The predominance of electronic image was eventually glorified in the program Immagina (1987-88) which spoke about the new aesthetics of appearance focusing on new media art forms and the technologies they use. It’s hard to label all these works as they are in between art for tv and art in tv.