Korean-American artist Nam June Paik is recognized throughout the world as being “The Father of Video Art” for his radical artistic perspectives and ability to use technology as a creative medium in his work. Paik’s artwork and ideals primarily encompass culture and identity. Paik is able to convey these messages through his technological views, which are intertwined with his realistic vision of society, and conceptualized in some of his most famous pieces: Electronic Super Highway, TV Garden, and Megatron Matrix.
Paik had a unique childhood that directly impacted his future works of art. Nam Jun Paik was born in Seoul, Korea on July 20, 1932 as the 5th child to a wealthy industrial family. Fifteen years later, he began studying piano …show more content…
A wonderful example of his expression of youth lies within one of his first major works, Electronic Superhighway. This artwork is a 49 channel, closed circuit video installation made up of neon, steel, and other electronic components. (Hanhardt) Electronic Superhighway is a massive piece of artwork (15ft x 40ft x 4ft) that is meant to occupy a middle ground between virtual reality and our real, and enormous country. The sheer size of Paik’s artwork is symbolic of the size of the nation that Paik was confronted with upon arrival to the United States. The neon in his work is also extremely important in the analyzation of this piece. The unique colors outline different states and are representative of each state’s distinct identity and culture. The states are all firmly defined by the light, but also linked by the steel framing. The steel outlines the “superhighways” that both economically and culturally unify the continental U.S.. However, where the highways are meant to express unification through travel, the lights are meant to express a new form of unification through technology. Paik also used his many televisions in combination with audio clips being played from The Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma, and other movies to convey an image that would have been “seen as though from a passing car”. These visual cues were used as a median to …show more content…
Paik sorted the monitors in this work into two different sections. The larger part of the piece, “Megatron”, is meant to convey the vast reach of the media, while the smaller section, the “Matrix” is supposed to represent how we are all a part of the work. In the smaller matrix section, Paik arranged all of the screens in a way that made the images seem to spiral inward towards a screen that displayed two partially nude females. The impression that has come to be by doing this is that Paik wanted to suggest that “our bodies are our primal connection to the world”, but the effect on the viewer is that you are being assaulted by “too much information”. (Renwick Gallery) This piece of artwork from Paik is unique in composition, but it contains the same general message as many other pieces of work. Paik uses technology to convey that citizens of the world are all connected and intertwined in some
Paik had a unique childhood that directly impacted his future works of art. Nam Jun Paik was born in Seoul, Korea on July 20, 1932 as the 5th child to a wealthy industrial family. Fifteen years later, he began studying piano …show more content…
A wonderful example of his expression of youth lies within one of his first major works, Electronic Superhighway. This artwork is a 49 channel, closed circuit video installation made up of neon, steel, and other electronic components. (Hanhardt) Electronic Superhighway is a massive piece of artwork (15ft x 40ft x 4ft) that is meant to occupy a middle ground between virtual reality and our real, and enormous country. The sheer size of Paik’s artwork is symbolic of the size of the nation that Paik was confronted with upon arrival to the United States. The neon in his work is also extremely important in the analyzation of this piece. The unique colors outline different states and are representative of each state’s distinct identity and culture. The states are all firmly defined by the light, but also linked by the steel framing. The steel outlines the “superhighways” that both economically and culturally unify the continental U.S.. However, where the highways are meant to express unification through travel, the lights are meant to express a new form of unification through technology. Paik also used his many televisions in combination with audio clips being played from The Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma, and other movies to convey an image that would have been “seen as though from a passing car”. These visual cues were used as a median to …show more content…
Paik sorted the monitors in this work into two different sections. The larger part of the piece, “Megatron”, is meant to convey the vast reach of the media, while the smaller section, the “Matrix” is supposed to represent how we are all a part of the work. In the smaller matrix section, Paik arranged all of the screens in a way that made the images seem to spiral inward towards a screen that displayed two partially nude females. The impression that has come to be by doing this is that Paik wanted to suggest that “our bodies are our primal connection to the world”, but the effect on the viewer is that you are being assaulted by “too much information”. (Renwick Gallery) This piece of artwork from Paik is unique in composition, but it contains the same general message as many other pieces of work. Paik uses technology to convey that citizens of the world are all connected and intertwined in some