PTV: Performance TV – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

Is television dead – or are we living in a post-TV era? Can everyone have their own channel? PTV: Performance TV is an experimental performative programme in the form of a television studio. The starting point is the impact of the medium and its idiom on current artistic practices. We have invited contemporary artists who employ formats such as soap opera, talk shows, documentary and video clips – and also those who proclaim the death of television and are out to prove that it is the Internet that has taken over TV’s former function in society. The project draws on the democratic nature of the latter medium and is based on the idea that today everybody can create their own TV.

• We invite TV viewers for another instalment! As a starter, we bring you an online serial directed by the artist, writer and popular Instagram poster Zofia Krawiec. As she explains: ‘Hate and narcissism appear to be the two key phenomena in contemporary culture. Their existence and rise are closely linked to technological changes. Online, everybody can be anyone they want. The incessant opportunity to peep on the lives of others and comparing oneself to them breeds great resentment that can manifest in ways that are comical, but also horrific and dramatic in consequences.’ Part 7 will culminate in meeting Amos, the malicious doll created by Cécile B. Evans, who, in the series, lampoons a visionary modernist architect. The individual episodes, against the backdrop of a brutalist stage set, stem from the series of performances that took place during 2017 and 2018.