Jessie Scott on Larry Emdur’s Suit (2002) and the death of analog television broadcasting in Australia.

There’s Emile, part Edward Scissor Hands/part Wu Tang Clan, ably filling the frame with studied awkwardness; not just in a video, On Television. The cognitive dissonance of seeing this for the first time was astonishing: it wasn’t just any TV – it was ultimate prime time chew-cud: The Price is Right. There he is cracking wise with plastic fantastic Larry, playing the game, not giving away the joke, carefully treading the line between performance and reality. A line that, in the wake of the 90s talk show phenomenon, and before reality TVs total dominion, had suddenly become very blurred. It was prescient – a death knell to hackish old analogue, sent from the past to the future, sincere, hysterical and knowing.

Full article available at http://televisionsproject.org/larryemdur/.

Watch Larry Emdur’s Suit at https://vimeo.com/24577604

1_800larry