In 1990 Judith Barry and Ken Saylor designed the exhibition From Receiver to Remote Control: the television set for the New Museum, New York. In more than 20 period rooms, from the 1920’s to the ‘90’s, playing appropriate television programming, they traced how television transformed the social space of the home and family relations in the US. In Barcelona, Spain, for Arts Santa Monica, Barry, Saylor and Project Projects have updated their earlier exhibition and research by comparing some of the differences and similarities in television history between Spain and the US in relation to ‘participatory democracy’. While television is often considered a monolithic entity, it differs from culture to culture. Tele-visual space produces personal and collective identities across ‘national’ and global boundaries where the viewer is implicated in questions of how media is democratized. The installation consists of a US zone, a Spanish zone, and a collective zone with longer programming from both countries. A timeline comparing the history of television in Spain and the US corkscrews 360 degrees throughout the entire installation that invites the spectators participation.

   The US and Spanish zones contrast representative programming from a moment when both countries assumed a homogeneous audience. This programming includes popular dramas, comedies and game shows; news broadcasts charting the events that precipitated the change in programming in both countries; alternative