3ETV is a bespoke 9-channel TV station curated and produced by Somerset House Studios, and developed in collaboration with HEK (House of Electronic Arts, Basel), M+ (Hong Kong), Onassis ONX (Athens/New York) & Pioneer Works (New York).
Broadcasting online from 12 October - 18 December 2026, it allows audiences to navigate their own viewing experience, moving between each channel's distinctive programme of artworks, film and archive, alongside live capture of the one-off performances presented at 3 Evenings: Experiments in Performance and Technology. Taking place in London (Oct 16-18), 3 Evenings is a live event which playfully reimagines 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering (1966), which took place in New York sixty years ago and is widely considered a pivotal moment in the history of artists working with new technologies.
The original 9 Evenings event brought together artists and engineers in an unprecedented collaboration, with artists including Robert Rauschenberg, Deborah Hay, John Cage and Yvonne Rainer working alongside more than 30 Bell Labs engineers to create a series of large-scale, cross-disciplinary works. The event introduced closed-circuit television, fibre optics, infrared cameras, and wireless transmitters into performance for the first time, fundamentally reshaping artistic practice and how artists would make performance going forward. At the London event, artists have been invited to respond to the question 'what does it mean to perform with technology today?' - in front of a live audience, at a former hydraulic power station, echoing the original staging.
3ETV extends this environment online and explores how performing with technology has evolved, in a world where closed circuit tv is no longer closed, anyone with a phone can broadcast and the algorithm is sovereign. As well as curating a programme of commissioned artist responses and provocations, experimental shorts and archival material, Somerset House Studios has invited HEK, M+, Onassis ONX & Pioneer Works to collaborate on decentralising and pluralising the response. Each collaborator has guest-curated a channel, presenting new works, past commissions and moving image works from their archives, the resulting programme a beautiful cacophony for browser and phone, an evolving online experiment.
During the three nights of 3 Evenings, audiences will be able to view the performances at Wapping Powerstation live from multiple angles on both the venue screens and via 3etv.net. Alongside the wider online programme, the power station and 3ETV will become a networked space for the duration, with video works and performances broadcast into and out of the live event.
Additional works are presented in collaboration with CIRFA, Electronic Art Intermix (EAI, New York), EMAP, Trisha Brown Archives, and Julia Stoschek Foundation.
3 Evenings is supported by Glass Castle Foundation, the philanthropic organisation behind Wapping Hydraulic Power Station.