Searching for the latest in techno music video can be a fruitless endeavor on American television unless you happen to live in San Francisco or New York. There, local cable channels are graced weekly with the beats and rasters of Flux Television. Flux is the brainchild of Jonathan Wells, a California native who has produced video shows for more than 10 years. Wells now collaborates with nine other producers, designers, and editors to create this half-hour gem, in which videos from electronic acts such as the Future Sound of London, Bomb the Bass, and Plastikman collide with excellently reported segments on digital culture.
Recent shows featured tours of New York's Internet caf�s, the annual Robot Wars competition in San Francisco, and interviews with DJs and the Bristol, England-based band Portishead. These segments are direct and concise, and provide great introductions for those not aware of all that is happening in the way of "digital convergence." The subjects are also diverse enough to make it hard to classify Flux as just another video show; it communicates on multiple levels without turning into Technotainment Tonight.
In addition to Flux Television's slick broadcast design, the show's producers boldly challenge viewers. Flux goes out of its way to air unconventional videos, often without faces or lyrics, anathema to programmers in this country. Although there is a wealth of this kind of material being produced, with consistently amazing graphics and camera work, these hard-to-categorize videos rarely receive airtime.
One such video, "Second Bad Vilbel" from the group Autechre, centers loosely around the movement of small robots and has agitating effects that appear to wreak havoc on your vertical hold - not your usual dance party fare, to be sure.
The fact that Flux Television's producers take chances like this and still put out a polished and professional show already has poised them to make the jump to cable or network TV, where they'll be challenging the industry as much as its viewers.
Although Flux Televison's slogan is "Watch the Future," its coverage and techniques really represent the music and culture of the present. The rest of the country needs to tune in and catch up.
Flux Television airs in San Francisco at 11 p.m. Saturdays on cable channel 53 and in New York at 11 p.m. Wednesdays on channel 17. Contact: +1 (415) 281 3377, email flux@flux.net, on the Web at www.flux.net/
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