Burning Televisions

April 7, 2013 6:15 PM

Burning Televisions - To Henry Ford My Soul Will Creep (1991) by Carl Wiedermann. A celebration of 20th Century detritus. Kodak Tri-X 16mm reversal film, a Bolex 16mm camera, a Realistic MG-1 synthesizer, and a Fostex four-track cassette recorder.
posted by Ardiril (16 comments total)

So in conclusion: Those big wrenches are not, in fact, very good instruments for smashing things. The man using it is apparently able to do less damage than the woman can with her steel bar, and is having a very hard time swinging it around. They should have used a sledgehammer, or maybe a crowbar.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 6:38 PM on April 7, 2013

What you're saying is, it's not about the size of your wrench but how you swing it.
posted by Ardiril at 6:44 PM on April 7, 2013

So, if you were one of those people who were asking "What's the deal with that guy Bug and his friends in the movie Uncle Buck? I thought the early 90's were flannel and colored jean shorts...?"

Well, realise that we didn't go from New Wave to Alt in one evening. Note the Doc Martens. It was a slow and messy cross dissolve.
posted by Bathtub Bobsled at 6:44 PM on April 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

The obsession with television and television sets is very early 90s and seems really dated by now. Reminds me of that scene in Slacker where they're having a metaphysical discussion in a room full of TV sets. Does today's generation care about TV the same way Gen Xers did in 1991?
posted by pziemba at 6:46 PM on April 7, 2013 [3 favorites]

Well, this was before The Wire.
posted by whir at 7:08 PM on April 7, 2013

This reminds me of an Art of Noise video from the 80s. Destruction! Destruction!
posted by xingcat at 7:41 PM on April 7, 2013

How nice for those restless kids that they released their youthful energies by smashing old junky stuff. Glad it wasn't on my lawn. I hope they cleaned up afterwards.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:53 PM on April 7, 2013 [2 favorites]

There was a scene in the last episode of GIRLS i watched this season, 3 or 4 or something, where the hotshit contempo/hirstian bad boy artist guy that Marnie digs locks her into this tv enclosure, like 15-20 old boxy faux wood panelled tv's playing stuff that looks like it could have come from the trippy boat scene in the first charlie + the chocolate factory, for an hour or however long and she comes out all woozy and "wooow. that was amazing." It was a pretty goofy scene. So maybe that early nineties tv aesthetic is ripe for hamhanded reappropriation by people born after or concurrently with it. Which is going to be awkward/remind me I'm getting older.
posted by notesondismantling at 8:18 PM on April 7, 2013

Whats even more interesting? The guys steadicam sampler reel.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:14 PM on April 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

It's a real shame, but today's televisions are just not as satisfying to smash.
posted by orme at 2:18 AM on April 8, 2013

Try holding one by the edges and cracking it across sharp, sturdy edge, e.g. a concrete ledge.
posted by Dr Dracator at 4:39 AM on April 8, 2013

Raw momentum is where it's at, a long steel bar is incredibly effective. Seven feet is about optimal in terms of free hand usable weight. I took down a large well constructed shed once.
posted by sammyo at 4:43 AM on April 8, 2013

It's always funny to me how the big "look how radical we are" statement from the seventies on was always to smash televisions, or shoot televisions, or throw televisions out the window, or to carefully record the sound of a smashing television on their Walkman Professionals so they can dump it into an Ensoniq Mirage sampler and, man, actually play the sound of a smashing television.

We'll show you, parents—we're going to wreck your consumer goods!

The amusing irony, twenty-two years later, is that these folks almost certainly sit around discussing just how amazing that episode of Breaking Bad was and are bemoaning the fact that they just can't believe that their kids are now old enough to vote.

World of the future, baby!
posted by sonascope at 5:19 AM on April 8, 2013

I ran a Bolex 16mm back in high school, filming the footballs and basketball games for team review (in 1975!!!) I had to learn the arcane art of loading film into the magazine blindly, with my hands inside a changing bag. Fun times.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:39 AM on April 8, 2013

A lot more televisions would be getting smashed if kids didn't all have their faces in their Palm Pilots or whatever you call them.
posted by mike_bling at 7:56 AM on April 8, 2013

Reminds me of The Who
posted by MtDewd at 6:07 PM on April 8, 2013