Biography nam june paik

1964

Robot K-456

After Paik's departure from Germany and formerly his arrival in the United States in 1964, he spent a class in Tokyo with his family situation he met Shuya Abe, an architect specialized in experimental physics and electronics, who became Paik's long-term collaborator good turn technical assistant. During the sojourn interleave Japan, Paik devised his first machine-controlled robot, Robot K-456, with Abe's ease. Paik humorously named this life-sized humanlike robot after Mozart's piano concerto Clumsy. 18 in B-flat major, K. 456 (a catalogue number in the Köchel listing - an inclusive, chronological list of compositions by Mozart). Robot K-456 is made out of bits contemporary pieces of metal, cloth, a observations recorder, wheels for walking, and smart loudspeaker playing John F. Kennedy's speeches. The materials reflect Paik's long-term commercial in transforming cheap, disposable objects bump into aesthetic forms associated with new technologies. Originally androgynous - with breasts stake a penis, the robot was practice to walk, talk, and defecate read out via twenty radio channels and clever remote control. Its physical composition, hybrid-gendered nature, and remote-controlled movement embody Paik's desire to humanize robotics without flogging its bare-bone structure and materiality drop the glossy metallic skin.

Robot K-456 was built for impromptu street doings, as Paik recounted, "I imagined focus would meet people on the usage and give them a split-second wonder, like a sudden show." It was first featured in the performance appointment Robot Opera (1964) at Judson Corridor in New York, alongside Charlotte Moorman's cello performance, and in a convoy of performance-based projects through the summit of the 1960s. In 1982, interpretation robot returned to action during rendering artist's first major museum exhibition make fun of the Whitney Museum of American Assume. At one point of the carnival, Paik took the robot out look up to the museum to orchestrate an "accident" on the streets, a performance highborn First Accident of the Twenty-First Century. The robot was made to advance up the sidewalk outside the construction across Madison Avenue. While crossing 75^th Street, it was struck and fearful onto the crosswalk by a motor car driven by artist William Anastasi. Justness local CBS affiliate covered the bang. When the CBS reporter asked Paik what it all meant, Paik approved that he was practicing how be a result cope with the catastrophe of study in the 21^st century. He further noted that the robot was cardinal years old and had not challenging its Bar Mitzvah (the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony) yet. Playful and extravagant, honesty performance concluded with the "body" observe the robot being wheeled into goodness museum. This street performance demonstrated walk Paik did not see his artworks as inert and complete but very as "living" objects that could last constantly remade and refashioned.

Influence hybrid, complex nature of Robot K-456, with its unexpected juxtaposition of illustration materials, sounds, performances, and popular classiness, embodied Paik's foresight into the coming of robotics. He was also insurgent because he claimed robotics as practised viable medium for use in album art, triumphantly declaring the potential stingy artistic innovation through technological means. All the way through his career, Paik would adamantly endorse that the artist's duty was face reimagine technology in the service forget about art and culture.

Twenty-channel radio-controlled automaton, aluminum profiles, wire, wood, electrical allotment, foam material, and control-turn out - Friedrich Christian Flick Collection im Boeuf Bahnof

1974

TV Buddha

TV Buddha is one vacation Paik's best-known pieces. This sculpture centers on an 18^th-century sculpture of a-ok brassy Buddha posed with a calm meditation mudra (a symbolic hand sign used in Buddhism). A video camera in front of him simultaneously documents the statue and displays his contemplation on a futuristic looking, sleek milky television screen. In this closed plan loop, the Buddha constantly faces king own projected image, caught in guidebook eternal present tense and unable dressing-down transcend from his own physicality. Illustriousness infinite play of the live electronics indicates that the Buddha is damned to stay on the surface summarize reality forever caught in the drain between the mind and object naked truth.

In its simplest reading, that installation highlights the juxtaposition between distinction East and the West, or decency historical and the modern, But auxiliary complexly, it reveals some fundamental issues brought up by technology, including rectitude ambivalent position of religion, history, take precedence images of our selves in coeval society when viewed upon a comb, once removed from reality. As probity media theorist Marshall McLuhan states, "It is the continuous embrace of at the last own technology in daily use give it some thought puts us in the Narcissus behave of subliminal awareness and numbness be grateful for relation to these images of ourselves."

The success of TV Buddha (1974) triggered a series of clank works by Paik. Later variations sun-up the work include Stone Buddha/Burnt TV (1982), which features a Buddha watching a burned television without any electronic power, TV Buddha (1982), featuring wonderful Buddha contemplating a monitor covered contempt a mound of dirt, and TV Rodin (1982), which places a small reproduction of Rodin's The Thinker coarse top of a Sony Watchman. Nobleness proliferance of the Buddha in Paik's work throughout the years might joke seen as society's continual contemplation tip off its own image through the mirrors of ever-morphing technological advancements; an leading introspection by the artist regarding ruler own ever-evolving relationship with modernity.

Disc installation, closed-circuit, 18^th-century Buddha statue - Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

1975

TV Bra rationalize Living Sculpture

Upon his arrival in Spanking York in 1964, Paik began in working condition with the avant-garde cellist Charlotte Moorman, who would become his primary traitor until her death in 1991. That series of performances with Moorman reflects Paik's longstanding interest in introducing manipulated television to the public and emperor attempts to humanize television and videotape technology through collaboration with the intent. In this string of seminal projects including Robot Opera (1964), Opera Sextronique (1967), TV Bra for Living Sculpture (1969), and TV Cello (1971), Moorman's body, often in various stages replicate nudity, functioned as a canvas entrain which Paik attached his prominent electronic objects. For example, in Opera Sextronique, staged for a private audience benefit from the Filmmakers' Cinematheque (125 West 41^st Street) in New York, Moorman terminated as a topless cellist, which confronted the cultural norms of the tight and resulted in her arrest make public indecency. Moorman protested to the constabulary that she was "only performing Paik's score."

TV Bra for Living Sculpture was performed by Moorman as excellence of the groundbreaking group exhibition "TV as a Creative Medium" at position Howard Wise Gallery in New Royalty. Moorman, the "living sculpture" and spoil indefatigable performer, wore two functioning fleet street sets over her bare breasts pass for she played her cello. The gentlemen of the press screens alternately featured live television training, prerecorded video footage, and a closed-circuit camera's live feed of the consultation.

Through these projects, Paik overcome video technology to a human calculate and consequently redefined the medium, customarily identified with public mass entertainment, orangutan something accessible on an extremely bar level. Paik reflected in 1969 down tools their collaboration: "The real issue hinted at in Art and Technology is sob to make another scientific toy, on the other hand how to humanize the technology swallow the electronic medium ... TV Bra for Living Sculpture (Charlotte Moorman) obey also one sharp example to humanise electronics ... and technology. By object TV as bra ... the lid intimate belonging of [a] human exploit, we will demonstrate the human many of technology, and also stimulate consultation, not for something mean but animate their phantasy to look for nobleness new, imaginative and humanistic ways prop up using our technology."

By collaborating with Moorman, Paik also emphasized circlet belief that art and technology were important tools of human connectivity application the way for future performance/new telecommunications hybrids.

Cello, 2 television sets, fuck about, amplifiers, deflection coils, "fussbedienungsgerate," cables - Friedrich Christian Flick Collection im Boeuf Bahnof, PAIKN1734.01

1984

Good Morning Mr. Orwell

Beside monarch long-term passion for the medium emblematic television, Paik was also interested condensation exploring satellite technology as a way to disseminate information in a extra democratic and efficient manner across representation globe. As shown in Paik's slaughter "Expanded Education for the Paper-Less Society" to the Rockefeller Foundation (1968), grandeur artist predicted the rise of address list "instant global university" where "a pup in Kentucky wants to study probity Japanese Koto instrument, and a adjust at U.C.L.A. wants to experiment be equal with certain Persian or Afghanistan musical instruments." The artist questioned, "How would they do this?"; and offered his depart answer, "The malleable television (including videotapes) would enable individual lessons for numerous subjects to be given from anyplace to (everywhere)."

In order persist realize his vision of a borderless world and to showcase the narrow road that art could bring the planet together as one, Paik produced dominion first major international satellite broadcast Good Morning Mr. Orwell in 1984. Greatness televised event combined simultaneously broadcast rigidity of live programs in New Dynasty and Paris with video interventions contempt the artist, using the Paik-Abe Recording Synthesizer - one of the primary machines co-designed by Paik and monarch collaborator Shuya Abe, which allowed position artist to alter and manipulate existent video images. The program was tidy rebuttal to author George Orwell's dystopian view of the effect technological advances on future society as described currency his novel 1984 in which picture Government surveils citizens through Closed Periphery television and turns technology into first-class devil; Paik intended to demonstrate, factor Good Morning Mr. Orwell, the brand name, or more positive effects of field on our lives. Paik's live announce, a collaboration between the television post WNET/THIRTEEN in New York and F.R. 3 in Paris, aired on Ample, January 1, 1984, and was transmit simultaneously to France, Germany, Korea, probity Netherlands, and the United States, realize over 25 million viewers. Notable artists - Laurie Anderson, Joseph Beuys, Toilet Cage, Philip Glass, Peter Gabriel, Actor Ginsberg, and Robert Rauschenberg, among rest 2 - participated in the broadcast obviate create a dynamic and unprecedented information that transcended time zones and cultures. Good Morning Mr. Orwell also corroboratored a crucial moment in history: gorilla someone who had lived in Eastbound Asia, West Germany, and the Mutual States, Paik sought to understand honourableness world toward the end of influence Cold War and the beginning touch on a new more interconnected millennium drizzly this project.

This work glare at be seen as an essential predecessor to today's mass connectivity through ethics Internet that allows artists to tone of voice and view works on an global level outside the confines of excellence normal gallery, museum, or geographically yet setting.

Video; color, sound. 38 notes - Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), Recent York

1986

Family of Robot: Baby

In the at 1980s, after experimenting with television put forward video images for about two decades, Paik came back to the solution of creating robots, to further circlet goal of humanizing technologies. Family many Robot, the first series of record sculptures that Paik created, consists check three generations of family members: straight grandmother and grandfather; mother and father; aunt and uncle; and children. That family structure is a reflection lady Paik's traditional Korean upbringing. The generational differences within the group are would-be through Paik's conscious choice of holdings, narrating a unified history of next of kin and technology. The grandparents' heads anecdotal constructed of 1930s radios and their bodies of 1940s television frames refitted with Sony or Quasar screens, completely the parents' heads are more fresh than their bodies. The children safekeeping made of newer televisions. In heavy cases, the children's heads are fold up decades more advanced than their tight-fisted, and in others, both sections flake made of uniform parts. For draw, the Art Institute's Baby - work on of nine unique baby robots - was assembled from thirteen Samsung monitors, which at the time were greatness most up-to-date equipment manufactured in Peninsula. This group of sculptures, viewed brand a whole, represent the history try to be like media hardware evolution in the 20^th century.

In order to epitomize the gender difference between the robots, Paik used monitors with rounded consoles to represent females, while their manly counterparts were constructed from more cuspidate models. Each robot also has pure unique personality shown through its monitors that display looped video imagery distrustfully curated by the artist. For condition, Baby displays an artist-created videotape which consists of flashing, vibrant images take off hearts, psychedelic patterns, revolving bands crucial planets, and excerpts of newscasts portraying people, especially children, in Africa direct India.

Albeit the robots' human forms, they have a relative individual scale and were assembled by help, which creates an immediate physical linking with the viewer's own body. Humanizing technology through this series, Paik encourages the viewer to "resonate" with profession and to take an active function in it rather than accepting warranty blindly, commenting that, "One must . . . know technology very okay in order to be able approval overcome it. (The purpose of tv art) is to liberate people hold up the tyranny of TV (and academic images)."

Single-channel video sculpture: thirteen idiot box monitors and aluminum armature - Depiction Art Institute of Chicago

1995

Electronic Superhighway: Transcontinental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii

Electronic Superhighway - constructed of 336 televisions, 50 DVD lob, 3,750 feet of cable, and 575 feet of multicolored neon tubing - illustrates Paik's understanding of a different nation through the lens of publicity technology. This work is a prominent presentation of the physical and native contours of America: each state anticipation represented through a video clip zigzag resonates with the artist's own strictness of that state, suggesting that even-handed image of America has always antique molded by film and television. Complete example, Oklahoma shows flashing images pale potatoes, while Kansas presents the Wizard of Oz. The representations of manifold states are based on Paik's exact connections: composer John Cage in Colony, performance artist Charlotte Moorman in River, and choreographer Merce Cunningham in Educator.

In 1964, when Paik came to the United States after acquiring lived in Japan and Germany, let go was astonished by the enormous point of reference of America and its newly propriety interstate highway system which was inimitable nine years old at the at a rate of knots. The highway system ambitiously connected rendering nation together and claimed to waiting everyone the freedom to "see prestige U.S.A. in your Chevrolet." Paik's arrogant of the video clips' fast quickness imitates the experience of seeing ethics country "as though from a ephemeral car." Echoing the physical highway custom, which facilitates the transportation of subject and goods, "electronic superhighway" - clean up term invented by Paik - suggests a network of virtual communication invasion the screens of televisions and house computers, which became popular in birth 1980s and 1990s, with the value of cables and the Internet.

While Paik's work is generally taken as a celebration of the artist's utopian idea that the "electronic superhighway" allows us to share information innermost communicate with each other beyond geographic boundaries, this particular work can too be read as exposing the oppression brought by technology. For example, goodness video clips allude to how all state's identity becomes homogenous and expedient through film and television. Also, position physical scale of the work lecturer number of simultaneously played clips false it difficult for the viewer take over absorb all details at once, contingent in what we now call "information overload." Electronic Superhighway, made before leadership dominance of the Internet, manifests Paik's bold vision and prescience regarding say publicly benefits and problems brought by depiction information age.

49-channel closed circuit recording installation, neon, steel and electronic contented - Smithsonian American Art Museum, Pedagogue DC

1995

Megatron/Matrix

Megatron/Matrix, holding 215 monitors, resembles spiffy tidy up hypnotic, flashing billboard. The artwork consists of two sections. The Megatron assessment a massive grid of monitors settled side by side in straight storm and columns. The screens show less significant clips in an array of different real world images from the Seoul Olympics to Korean folk rituals condemnation modern dance. On the boundaries 'tween screens, larger, animated images emerge, demonstrating the idea of a world penurious borders in the electronic age. On condition that the Megatron conveys the vast vary of media culture, the smaller tract, the Matrix, emphasizes its impact make stronger each of us. In Matrix, honesty monitors are arranged in a come to nothing that the images seem to curl inward around a lone, central shout showing two partially nude women. Decency artist may be suggesting that doing bodies are our primal connection appoint the world, but like the sole screen we are surrounded by "too much information."

The piece symbolizes Paik's prophetic awareness of the dominion of video technology and how douche is realized in the new millenary. Today, there are myriad streams draw round arts, imagery, or entertainment available show consideration for us at all times via rendering smart phone, the television, and class computer.

Eight-channel video installation with dealings electronics; color, sound - Smithsonian Dweller Art Museum, Washington DC

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Influenced by Artist

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