The Space Program

1986, 504 min, color, sound
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1985, 28 min, color, sound
 
1986, 28 min, color, sound
 
1986, 28 min, color, sound
 

The Space Program, a catalytic work for Beck/Buck, undertaken before he participated in the Whitney ISP Program in 1993 and emerged on the visual art scene in the 90s, should be considered alongside such artistic television interventions as Gerry Schum’s TV Gallery and Alex Bag’s Cash from Chaos / Unicorns & Rainbows for its use of television as a staging ground for artistic experimentation. Broadcast regularly on Manhattan Cable Television for the better part of a year, Beck undertook each half-hour episode as a conceptual performance, using duration, the context of television, and video technology as expressive tools. Beck’s programs – one comprised entirely of establishing shots from prime-time soap operas, another comprised of the artist’s blurred face accompanied by sounds of a shooting rampage – were likely encountered by accident, with no context other than the haphazard surrounding programs, emphasizing art’s capacity to unsettle the known and open up a path into the unknown.