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The programme consisted of a large number of segments produced by the 14 contributing broadcast organizations. On the day of broadcast all these seg‑
ments were stitched together in a 1.5 hour programme constantly moving between different locations. By underlining synchronization this paper argues
the need to understand liveness and immediacy as the result of material production practices. Pulling off the live, instantaneous transcendence of space
required the creation, over months, of an elaborate set of plans, scripts, and technical networks – requiring, ultimately, the creation of a command central
that would take the lead in the negotiation of the broadcast’s final form, represent itself as administering the broadcast during the show itself, and serve as
the final authority in synchronizing technical decisions. In order to address the relation between liveness and synchronization the paper explores two key
aspects of the production of “Our World”. Firstly, the paper discusses the power dynamics involved in negotiations over synchronization; where would this
controlling center of the live network be located? Whose national infrastructures and personnel made “Our World”’s live temporality possible? The paper
shows how the broadcast’s production of liveness was highly dependent on synchronization of different networked nodes controlling the production. Sec‑
ondly, the paper discusses practices of timing necessary for synchronizing the broadcast event; howwere segments planned, scripted and produced in order
to create a broadcast immediacy, presence, and liveness? As argued throughout the paper, the efforts of presenting a simultaneous experience for the global
audience was highly dependent on practices of synchronization.
PN 235 Stormy Weather: The Pre- and Posthistory of Television
S. Ericson1
1 Södertörn University College, Huddinge, Sweden
This paper studies Ingmar Bergman’s early (and, as it turned out, only) television adaptations of Swedish dramatist August Storm (1960) and
A Dream Play (1963), two plays originating in Strindberg’s experiments with dramatic form during the first years of the 20th century, Both were broadcast
live in the Scandinavian region via Nordvision, and were favourably recieved by critics at the time: Bergman’s way of handling the new medium was inter‑
preted as a ”major breakthrough” for TV theatre, and he himself as ”predestined to become our foremost TV artist”. Another recurring observation among
critics was that these two plays had only been ”done full justice”on the television screen, as if the author ”already had, in some prophetic way, this medium
in mind”. In his 1974 book on television, RaymondWilliams noted that Strindberg’s experiments with ”moving dramatic images”foreboded forms of human
experience that would eventually become available with the technology of motion pictures. This observation has re-occurred in various strands of film and
drama studies, and has usually been elaborated in terms of the representational techniques of cinema, and/or Strindberg’s use of a subjective“dream logic”,
breaking with dramatic naturalism. This paper seeks to highlight more specific relations between Bergman, Strindberg, and the mediated simultaneities
of television (in terms of the text, the direction, the performance, the reception, the wider historical context), which would allow one to identify Strindberg
as the pre-history of television, and, television as the post-history of Strindberg.The claim that the two plays somehow anticipated, or were fully realized on,
television is thus explored in relation to various thematic and formal expressions of temporality (motifs of enclosed spaces, telephones, clouds, and faces,
the temporal dialectics of progress and repetition); and in relation to various specificities attributed to television (Scannell’s ”management of liveness”,
Williams’”mobile privatization”Cavell’s ”fact of television”,, etc. ). The type of historicity involved in the general claim that modern art anticipates on-com‑
ing media technology, and the specific claims of the TV critics watching Strindberg in the early 1960s, is related to Walter Benjamin’s notion of pre- and
posthistory.
PN 236 Global Iconic Events
J. Sonnevend1
1 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
Building on Daniel Dayan’s and Elihu Katz’s canonic Media Live Broadcasting of History (Harvard, 1992), this paper offers a new concept of“global
iconic events.”These are news events that the international media cover extensively and remember ritually. Global iconic events are mediated simultanei‑
ties; they can bring together people in a common experience of hope or desperation even in fragmented media environments and segmented interpretive
spaces. Global iconic events are meeting points of two temporal axes. Through extensive transnational coverage, they can bring people together during
the events’unfolding.Through their iconic status and ritual remembrance, global iconic events also connect us to the past. Narratively and visually condensed
over time through reiteration and circulation, these events (such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, the royal wedding and Nelson Mandela’s memorial)
acquire historic significance and resonance in more than one country, acting as temporally lasting reference points that are recognizable and meaningful in
many parts of the world. Examining the dynamics in which iconic events are formed, the paper suggests that there are five narrative dimensions of global
iconic events: (1) foundation: their narrative prerequisites; (2) mythologization: the development of their resonant message and elevated language; (3)
condensation: their encapsulation in a simple phrase, a short narrative, and a recognizable visual scene; (4) counter-narration: the emergence of alternative
narratives that reinterpret them; and (5) remediation: how they travel across multiple media platforms and changing political contexts. All these elements
raise important questions about time in general, and simultaneity in particular.“Foundation”refers to all the happenings that happened before the event.
“Mythologization” enables the formation of simultaneous transnational communities through the creation of lasting, simplified and resonant represen‑
tations of the event. “Condensation” creates mixed temporalities, bringing together diverse embodiments of past, present and future. Counter-narration
refers to narratives that have been developed against the event, often over long periods of time. Finally, remediation is a key requirement for the formation
of mediated simultaneities as it enhances the event’s ability to“pop up”in different locations, providing us with the illusion of simultaneity even when there