Monday 31 October 2016

Teletext Fest/Block Party 2016 retrospective for Digitiser2000


It's a new article; read it! Goujon John shall continue staring at you until you do so.

Can’t be swayed by his piercing gaze? Then perhaps you’ll be interested in this little run-down of events at the first Text Fest in Cambridge earlier this month. It’s more of an extended diary entry than a review, but that didn’t stop us all reading (watching?) Bridget Jones’ effort.

Disclaimer: the article linked below contains zero references to Bridget Jones. (Whoopee.) 

Teletext Digitiser Festival retrospective at Digitiser2000

Tuesday 4 October 2016

Teletext Art from Block Party Cambridge 2016

Block Party 2016 was held at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge on Saturday 1 October. It hosted a small self-service 'make your own teletext art' drop-in workshop alongside the cardboard cutout of Mr T in the foyer. This is a selection of the artwork created.

For more, see this Flickr photoset.







Tuesday 10 May 2016

#BlockPartyBerlin art now available @ ARD Text

Quick, witness it in person while you still can! Art from last week’s Block Party Berlin workshop is currently available to view on actual, real life teletext over at ARD Text.

If you don’t live in Germany and/or can’t access ARD Text on your television, there’s still the handy online option here.

And if that website doesn’t load for whatever reason, here are some high resolution pictures of it in action:




What, those pictures didn’t load either? Well, that’s no problem – all art is also viewable at the Block Party Berlin Flickr album.

And if you’re reading this in the year 2093 and that link has rotted away, well… I guess you can use the power of imagination!


Friday 6 May 2016

#BlockPartyBerlin workshop art now online!




On the evening of Tuesday 3 May, Republica Ten stood still for the teletext Block Party workshop... well, sort of. Dozens of wandering visitors came to stare in wonderment at the wall of teletext televisions that appeared overnight, marvelling at the 8-colour glitchfest that lay before them.

...But I'll go into greater detail about that soon. For the time being, here's the artwork people made for those televisions, collected in a single handy Flickr photo album for ease of reference.

Click here to see art created at #BlockPartyBerlin


Don't forget that a selection of these images will soon appear on ARD Text - we will let you know when that is happening so you can look for your favourite pieces on actual, real life teletext! Which, after all, is the true home of teletext pages.

I'd also like to thank everyone that contributed pages, technical assistance or just the odd friendly word of advice over the past month or so - each of you has helped make this Block Party every bit as exciting as the previous one in London last June.

We hope to hold another one soon, and you'll be the first to know when anything is announced.

A selection of art for your perusal:







Thursday 5 May 2016

Republica Festival, 2-4 May 2016. Assorted teletext-centric clips.

In no particular order: Bears, teletext, music, teletext, Ed Snowden, teletext, old TVs and teletext. Alles ist gut!

Friday 29 April 2016

Teletext Block Party II ** 3 May 2016 ** Republica Festival, Berlin

The Teletext Block Party is back for 2016, and now it’s international.


Block Party II will be held on Tuesday 3 May at Berlin’s Republica Festival, 3.00-6.00pm local time. More information can be found at the official Republica site right here.

…But I suppose I should paste an excerpt of the workshop blurb here, too!

Visitors to this workshop will find out how to make a personal teletext service to broadcast to their friends and family. They will use software to create pages with the correct specification to be shown on broadcast teletext, learn how to set up their own stand-alone teletext service with a Raspberry Pi, and share these pages via social media.

In addition, German broadcaster ARD has offered to broadcast some of the re:publica teletext artworks live on their teletext service during the conference, reaching a possible audience of up to 4 million visitors per day.
You heard that right. A selection of the best artwork created at this workshop will be broadcast on ARD Text… live.

But that’s not all!


Every single piece artwork created, be it via worksheet and felt pen or computer and teletext editor, will be posted or linked to right here at the Teletext Art Blog. Rest assured, dear bloggers, for all art will also be showcased at the Teletext Art Tumblr and Twitter.

But that’s still not all!


On the very same day, ARD will be holding their own teletext talk. It’ll be conducted entirely in German, but worry not, as there will also be plenty of pictures to marvel at.

And in case you can’t make it, I’ll provide a report on this very blog before the month of May is out.

And that’s all.


Except for this video of the first Block Party: