Internationaler Sendeschluss

‘The end of the programme concludes the viewers' day. The last images belong to national identity; landscapes, flags, buildings bring the television viewers back home, accompanied by hymns. The next images are dream images. The white noise of the screen is imageless sleep. The last 10 seconds of programme, and the subsequent closure of 48 stations from 20 countries around the world,’ is Gustav Deutsch's trenchant description of his work in progress, for which he collected - mainly by sending VHS video cassettes - the closure of programmes from stations around the globe: from Europe to Japan, from Kuwait to Iran, from Israel to the USA. International programme closures strikingly demonstrate how the visual language of the television medium produces universal uniformity, even when it attempts to emphasise national differences (German: ‘Immer weht die Nationalflagge im starken Wind. And the wind always blows from the left.") An astonishing journey through time in many respects. (Christoph Huber)

Introduction by Manfred Neuwirth