VJ Heaven

I spent a lot of my first few years in the haze of the seventies. I had no idea where I fit in and was of the belief that I would go nowhere. Then my father was handed a death sentence. The doctors gave him three months to live. Not knowing that those three months would stretch into thirteen years, I quit school and returned home.

After a while, dad stabilized, so I went through a series of demeaning clerical jobs. Finally, I got a job at a place that sold portable terminals. They were so light. They weighed “only” thirty pounds!

After a while, I applied for a sales position. Sexism back then was at its peak. I was told by “the head office” that they only had one female salesperson and she got her sales by having sex with her clients.

Needless to say, I quit and went to work for a strange new place that was a store that sold a new machine called a  microcomputer. At first, customers truckled in, giving us time to get familiar with both hardware and software. It was then learned about a few guys that invented  a microcomputer called the Apple. Another company, formed by two   guys in a garage, started  making software like Typing  Tutor and Word. We no6hcw know them well, Microsoft

After some time, a manager position opened and I applied. The excuse I got that time was that I didn’t have a degree. I took it silently, thinking’’            oh yeah? Watch me”

During that time, a few things caught my attention and influenced my pursuit motion, Pong® and Pac man®. I played them often and examined their execution.

I went to UIC and took the necessary core classes. Then, my life changed.

I took a computer graphics course. The first day, I walked into a dark room lit only by flickering monitor screens. I had finally found home.

Under the guidance of Professor Dan Sandin, we held the  first cable broadcast in Evanston, Illinois.. I believe it was in  81 or ’82.

First, we set up. We untangled the  “rats nest” of cables  and plugged in. Once connected, we started our show.

We played the best of the lab’s videos and animations and took turns being VJ’s. This is where I learned the inevitable truth. Being on-air talent was not my

destiny. I didn’t care. I was having fun and learning so much. Besides, we probably had a viewing public of , oh, maybe 12 people. We joked about it, never realizing that one day cable would broadcast to millions of people.

Now I see the struggle for enough quality programming to fill all the 500 plus channels. Just as well. These days, Nystagmus, or as I call them, “eye bobbles“, watching the same movies repeatedly helps fill in the visual gaps.

After getting my BFA, I went to work for a company called Telaction on Friday, July 28, 1986, attempting a feeble attempt at interactive TV. You turned on  the cable channel and called the shopping phone number. To change pages or make a purchase, you pressed the appropriate phone key.

It was a clumsy attempt which I knew would fail, so I used its short life span to help develop a digital paint program  (this was pre-Photoshop) During my off-hours, I digitally altered photographs and created “Dark Haired Woman” and “Shopping Mall”.

Once again, I learned a lot. Not wanting to be associated with a failure, I left the company. Not long afterward, it folded.

I then returned to the university for my MFA in electronic visualization.

© copyright 2006 Margaret M. Rawlings

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