Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London, will be taking part in the Being Human Festival. This week of events running across the UK from 17-25 November will highlight the ways arts and humanities can inspire and enrich lives. As part of the festivities, the ADAPT team from the Department of Media Arts, will be showcasing iconic television history at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford.
Outside broadcast technology
On November 23 and 24, ADAPT Live will reunite veteran TV crews to demonstrate the skills that delivered some of Britain’s earliest colour TV shows.
Amanda Murphy, Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Media Arts, said: "We are bringing together the pioneering BBC television crews that were responsible for bringing colour into our homes in the late 1960s to share stories, host live demonstrations and screen footage to share how television used to be made. It's going to be an exciting showcase of the ADAPT project in action."
ADAPTing technologies
ADAPT is a five-year (2013-2018) research project funded by the European Research Council and based at Royal Holloway. The aim of the project is to research and document the history of British broadcast television technology between 1960 and the near-present.
Television has seen vast technological changes since 1960. 60 years ago, the revolutionary technologies were two-inch videotape and 16mm film with synched tape-recorded sound; now tapeless production in high definition is the norm. All these changes have affected what has appeared on the screen. It also affected the lives of skilled technicians, who sometimes had to adapt to new ways of working, and just as often took a hand in adapting the available equipment to their specific needs.
The ADAPT project is pulling together the history and the human stories involved to show the skill, dedication and inspiration behind television as we know it. To discover more about the exhibition and to book tickets, visit the Being Human Festival website.
Find out more about the Department of Media Arts, their exciting research, and the courses they have on offer. More information about ADAPT is available on the project webpages.
