In Line

A trisection of the spectators’ power over their own image language: word trance and command are installed as valences of the artist’s license revealed as figures of parental authority. How peculiar that people like being an audience because they enjoy their submission to the authority of the program. This ritual of being dominated is a conspiracy with themselves that we enjoy but refuse to acknowledge. “Oh no. I don’t like TV because I’m submissive; it’s because it makes me feel good.” The programs are always carefully crafted to be sensitive to people’s selfprotectiveness even if they offer a good scare or a good cry. Well if this is all true what happens when by chance you submit to a program that refuses to be polite about your closet masochism? That tells all? —Tony Conrad