• Teletext @50: The Stories (Video Documentary)

    It’s a project five years in the making, from conception to fruition. Interviews from Carl Attrill’s Teletext People podcast have been carefully compiled and cut into a 110-minute documentary, here presented with visual footage for the 50th anniversary of teletext. Well, nobody else wanted to do it, so I guess we had to!

    We’ve sifted through tens of hours of raw recordings to tell the story of teletext, from its humble experimental beginnings to the eventual tour de force it would become. Also, I’ve got some interview clips in there. Take a look!

    October 28, 2024
    Podcasts, Teletext, Video

  • 40 Years of Amstrad CPC: A Textmode Tribute

    Teletext may be 50 this year, but there has been another big anniversary – 40 years of the Amstrad CPC. So naturally I combined the two mediums and created a small gallery of textmode artworks for the occasion! Some are new, others old and unreleased.

    Plus: a bonus AMSCII piece featuring the ever-popular croco dude, which placed second in Logiker’s competition for artwork hand-crafted in the format, held in June 2024.

    The first two pieces on this page were also featured in Yle Text’s Teletext50 exhibition in October and November 2024, no doubt befuddling its Finnish audience!

    October 19, 2024
    Teletext

  • Interview: Happy Birthday Ceefax, Trash Talk With Count Binface

    Count Binface is the Omniverse’s foremost intergalactic politician with a bin for a head, who, according to Richard Osman, is “a funny guy” (and luckily I tend to agree with him).

    I’m not particularly political, but that’s useful because this podcast episode is about the universe’s greatest information communication medium, the telephone. Or something, adanno. I’m in it, though!

    September 30, 2024
    Podcasts, Teletext

  • Interview: Teletext50 Mega-Feature, Pixel Addict Magazine

    Teletext’s golden anniversary is upon us, and I’ve made a not-so triumphant return to comedy with this interview for Pixel Addict magazine.

    Paul invited me back for an absolutely massive teletext feature starring many sixel-heads hovering the blockiest art & tech community around. Read all about the teletext50 exhibition and documentary projects, plus a whole bunch of surprising teletext-related stuff fit for the back of a cereal packet!

    September 1, 2024
    Articles, Teletext

  • Interview: “Teletext Art is about more than nostalgia”, Creative Bloq

    Following the success of a major fast food chain’s new teletext-inspired TV advertisement, I was asked to write a few words for art and design website Creative Bloq.

    These interviews tend to represent the teletext-related stuff I’ve recently been throwing around in my mind. Since the Mega-Zine article is soon to go live at teletextart.co.uk, this one includes a bit about a zany icon in the top corner of the section, which is a memorable part of my teletext past.

    October 22, 2023
    Articles, Teletext

  • Interview: Preserving Our Past, Pixel Addict Magazine

    This month’s Pixel Addict Magazine includes a special feature on the preservation of computing and technology, including (amongst many other things) an interview with a certain tele(text) addict.

    It’s been a while since my last one, so I’ve had the chance to remember cool “new” teletext-related stuff! For the very first time in print, I explain my (recently recovered) submissions to the Mega-Zine, and how I wasn’t even the first teletext artist in my family.

    June 1, 2023
    Articles, Teletext

  • Teletext at Jaywick Martello Tower

    Fellow pixel artist and podcaster Carl Attrill has been working with Jaywick Martello Tower to project teletext art onto the exterior of the venue.

    I would describe the tower as TARDIS-like in that it’s much bigger on the inside than it seems from the outside. Hence, this probably requires more projection power than you think!

    December 7, 2022
    Teletext

  • Binface’s teletext manifesto featured on ‘The Last Leg’

    Count Binface’s teletext-ised election manifesto has been featured on the 6/12/19 edition of Channel 4’s late night talk show The Last Leg with Adam Hills.

    I can’t claim credit for the policies, but I did convert them to teletext for Count B. You can read the whole thing on TEEFAX, or view the second video below for that full Pages From BINFAX experience.

    December 8, 2019
    News, Teletext, Video

  • Interview: Whatever Happened to Teletext? Daily Telegraph

    Teletext is the subject of a new article by Tom Hoggins, writer of the Telegraph’s Retro Tech series.

    Charting the fate of ‘the Internet of its time’, this excellent write-up features interviews with the legendary Mr Biffo and not-so-legendary Illarterate bloke. (You know, him off this website.)

    December 1, 2019
    Articles, Teletext

  • Interview: Teletext’s Creative Legacy, WePresent

    Craig Oldham at WePresent has written an article on the Internet’s role in the development of teletext art post-analogue switchoff.

    Included is a gallery of artwork by myself and Steve Horsley, as well as some of my comments on how teletext art is a useful introduction to graphic design concepts. I suppose I just have to go and learn those concepts now, eh?

    November 18, 2019
    Articles, Teletext

  • Illarterate’s ITAF 2013 artwork rebroadcast on YLE Text

    YLE Text are currently rebroadcasting some of Illarterate’s artwork from the 2013 International Teletext Art Festival.

    It is a little known fact, but the Finnish public service have been continuously hosting teletext art for a while now. The Museum of Teletext Art has been running since 2014, and to date has featured the work of dozens of teletext artists on page 805.

    And over the last few weeks, Illarterate’s entries for the 2013 Teletext Art Festival have been on show once again, including includes Sweet Rockall, Good Times the ubiquitous Teletextart.

    January 15, 2019
    News, Teletext

  • Illarterate @ Wigan Arts Festival 2017

    A Wigan-themed ‘not Bamboozle’ quiz and exhibition of ‘The Lens’ teletext service for Wigan Arts Festival and ‘Bring Your Own Beamer Wigan’ at the Old Courts.

    November 19, 2017
    Teletext
  • Joojon John

    New article: Teletext Fest 2016 retrospective for Digitiser2000

    Read it! Goujon John shall continue staring at you until you do so.

    Can’t be swayed by his piercing gaze? Then perhaps you’ll be interested in this little run-down of events at the first Text Fest in Cambridge earlier this month. It’s more of an extended diary entry than a review, but that didn’t stop us all reading (watching?) Bridget Jones’ effort.

    Disclaimer: the article linked below contains zero references to Bridget Jones. (Whoopee.)

    October 31, 2016
    Articles, Teletext

  • New interview: ‘Not a silent titan’ for Mistigris

    Ever wanted to know about those messages I send to my mistress via teletext? Or how on earth you can get away with printing lime green text on a magenta background? Or what the pixel artists of teletext’s heyday are doing now?

    If you answered ‘no’ to all those questions, bear in mind I only typed that first paragraph for the purposes of shameless clickbait. I mean, hey – even the BBC are up to it now, so why shouldn’t I join in?

    And anyway, weren’t all teletext headlines juicy, well-formatted clickbait of the 70s?

    May 31, 2016
    Articles, Teletext

  • New article: Teletext at Republica Festival 2016

    Whoever said teletext was a peculiarly British thing? Certainly not the enthusiastic fans I spoke to at Block Party Berlin earlier this month.

    Alright, I’ll admit it was I that suggested the medium is only ‘understood’ by people here in the UK. But I was wrong, for Europe has an even greater appetite, were that even possible, for Videotext.

    For proof, see my Block Party article at Transdiffusion. I promise it isn’t too long! And if you did indeed want a lengthier read… you can, er, go through it twice… I guess.

    May 24, 2016
    Articles

  • Teletext Dating @Small Cinema Liverpool

    A selection of templates for a little Liverpool Small Cinema @TeletextDating project for BFI’s Love Film season.

    A project harking back to teletext dating services popular in the UK during the 1980s and 1990s. European services still run phone dating services to this day – in fact in some cases they actually subsidise the whole teletext service.

    November 12, 2015
    Teletext