TV's are so much more than just objects. Aside from being the cheapest form of entertainment, the most unique thing about this device is that it completely embodies the Postmodern in our culture. The viewer gets juxtaposed images of reality that s/he can just turn off when truth has become so inconvenient. It's the ultimate simulacrum that Jean Baudrillard philosophizes about. We all get transported into a different reality that just sucks us all in every time we turn on the tube, and we learn more about our humanity everytime we do. Our vision of ourselves, so to speak, is reflected in these screens each time we turn them on.

The following text was taken from Wikipedia. Original writeup coming soon!

Television (TV) is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic ("black and white") or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission. The word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots: Greek tele , "far," and Latin visio, "sight" (from video, vis- "to see," or "to view" in the first person).

Commercially available since the late 1930s, the television set has become a common communications receiver in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s the availability of video cassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and now Blu-ray discs, have resulted in the television set frequently being used for viewing recorded as well as broadcast material.

A standard television set comprises multiple internal electronic circuits, including those for tuning and decoding broadcast signals. A display device which lacks a tuner is properly called a monitor, rather than a television. A television system may use different technical standards such as digital television (DTV) and high-definition television (HDTV). Television systems are also used for surveillance, industrial process control, and guiding of weapons, in places where direct observation is difficult or dangerous.

Borrowing from philosopher Jean Baudrillard's theory of the Simulacrum -- one of my favorite theories of Postmodern culture -- this site wants to convey just how the television has altered our sense of reality through its ubiquitous presentation of images that we take for reality. Images, after all, are nothing more than representations of the real thing, but if we are too enmeshed in the Simulacrum, we tend to take the representation as the real thing.

And is this not precisely what televisions do? It blurs the already thin line between fact and fiction. Although it enriches human imagination, stretching it far beyond any limits conceivable, the TV also alienates the viewer from any direct contact or experience that even what is seen as real may seem the opposite, and vice versa.

More about Postmodernism, Baudrillard and the Simulacra soon!