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The following information is excerpted from this book.
For almost four decades, Korean-born Nam June Paik has been the artist most identified with the fusion of art and technology. In chapter 10, Paik was introduced as the first to use video as an art medium. Here, we consider him as a major mixed-media artist.
From the beginning of his career, Paik has refused to conform to the demands of only one creative medium. He began by studying musical composition before moving on to visual art. In the 1960s he achieved art-world notoriety for creating a cello made from television monitors. He composed several works for his "TV cello". For a 1978 installation, he recorded videotapes of green landscapes, and played them on monitors placed in a bed of live plants. A recent installation made use of video monitors, sounds, projected imagery, and brightly colored laser beams.
In 1974 Paik, in harmony with computer development, envisioned a totally new kind of super highway made up of interactive technologies that would enable a new level of communication around the world. His 1997-1998 traveling installation exhibit, the _Electronic Super Highway_, filled with his recent video assemblages, incorporates over 650 working television monitors. He calls it "Cybertown". What could be more "mixed" than the ingredients of Paik's humorous "Internet Dweller: wol.five.ydpb" listed in the caption of the piece shown here?
Nam June Paik.
Internet Dweller: wol.five.ydpb
Two Panasonic 10" televisions, six KTV 5" televisions, six vintage television cabinets, projector, lantern, glass insulators, neon, one laser disc player, one original Paik laser disc.
Courtesy Solway Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Photographers: Chris Gomien and Tom Allison.
Insulators Home > Insulator Styles > Miscellaneous > Creativity > 'Internet Dweller' sculpture by Nam June Paik
Contact: A.C. Walker