I think I remember watching The Man Who Fell To Earth late night on BBC2 at some point in the 80s. when there were only 4 TV channels in the UK. I don't remember being hugely impressed with the film but Mr Bowie's growing collection of TV screens bowled me right over. Given how much it's stuck in my head I'm surpised I only dug it out again the other week.
They seemed to represent such profligacy and power. All those screens! All those channels! How much you would know if you watched them all! What a way to live a life. This was probably the same phase of life where I wanted to be Clive James - watching TV all the time and being witty and clever about it in The Observer.
In my head his final assemblage of screens filled a room - vast, blinking, unknowable. Actually, now, it looks rather pathetic. You see bigger displays in shopping centres. Just twelve channels.
A few years later we went to Graceland and I remember being similarly impressed by Elvis' TV Room - and that only featured three channels. Perhaps it was the simultaneity of it that was so thrilling. Three screens at once!
These days you need a full-fledged mission control, or the Eye of Cy from Interface to deliver the same effect. Maybe that's what I'm trying to build.