![]() The piece was commissioned by IRCAM, ProQuartet, Milano Musica and Warsaw Autumn. The digital elaboration of the instruments is hugely inspired by the modulation technology once commonly used – and in part still used today – in TV and radio broadcasting. The 1987 Max Headroom Broadcast Incident was written for a prepared string quartet, “augmented” with the use of transducers. ![]() MacDougall, using the pseudonym Captain Midnight, jammed the Home Box Office (HBO) satellite signal on Galaxy 1 during a showing of the film The Falcon and the Snowman. The transmission then blacked out for a few seconds before resuming the Doctor Who episode in progress. Captain Midnight broadcast signal intrusion On April 27, 1986, American electrical engineer and business owner John R. ![]() He then tossed the can out of sight, presented his middle finger, sang an excerpt of “I’m losing you” (a 1966 Motown hit recorded by the Temptations), hummed the theme song of Clutch Cargo (a clumsily-animated television series of the 60s). The man started to moan, scream and laugh, uttering various random phrases (the audio was distorted and crackling), including New Coke's advertising slogan "Catch the Wave" while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coca-Cola spokesperson at the time). an episode of the British TV-Series Doctor Who was suddenly interrupted by television static, after which an unidentified man wearing a Max Headroom mask and sunglasses appeared. The pirate broadcast, which lasted 90 endless seconds, featured an individual disguised as Max Headroom (a sci-fi computer-generated television character quite popular in the 80s, coming from dystopian near-future dominated by television and large corporations).Īround 11:15 p.m. The signal pirates, whose identities were never found, succeeded in getting their broadcast intruded onto WTTW (a local Public Broadcasting Service television station). The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion was a television signal hijacking that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, United States on the evening of November 22, 1987. Here’s an excerpt from the composer’s introduction, in which he recalls the famed television signal hijacking that occurred 30 years ago in the United States. The piece, dedicated to Fausto Romitelli, is a tribute to obsolete (or soon to-be-obsolete) technology and a dark and dreary future where 1980s cyberpunk sci-fi media rules the roost. He held up a can of Pepsi, flipped off the camera with a dildo, sung a line from a Temptations song, hummed an old animated TV show theme, and exposed his butt so that a lady could hit it with a flyswatter.Mauro Lanza’s latest composition The 1987 Max Headroom Broadcast Incident for “augmented” string quartet will be making its world premiere on May 15 at the 'Friche la Belle de Mai Festival' in Marseille, France. ![]() ![]() (Max Headroom, if you’re not familiar, was a weird stuttering character in an 80s TV show he was supposed to be a computer AI, although he was played by a man in makeup.) It was a simple signal hijacking: you broadcast your own signal with more power than the actual feed, and you take over the airwaves for a time.ĭuring an episode of Doctor Who on a different channel two hours later, the hijacker returned. The first phase was minor: 28 seconds of an evening news broadcast was replaced with a masked figure silently bopping back and forth while a corrugated iron background rotated behind him. There have been a few significant TV signal intrusions – including one notable 1986 incident in which an HBO satellite signal was hijacked in order to protest rising cable prices – but the Max Headroom intrusion has to be one of the most… unique, I guess? Unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion was a television signal hijacking that occurred in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on the evening of November 2. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |