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Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Participation TV
Nam June Paik, «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television», 1963
Participation TV | Photography | Photograph: Peter Brötzmann
With the ‘prepared’ or sometimes destroyed piano, John Cage, Paik and the Fluxus artists launched an assault on the instrument of the European musical tradition and the symbol of the affluent middle-class home. Paik now transferred this treatment to the TV set, which in the 1960s replaced the piano as the most expensive item of furniture in the home. Paik’s modifications suggest various possible attitudes of viewer to TV picture, ranging from object of meditation ('Zen for TV') to object of interaction ('Participation TV'). His notion of making viewers active participants rather than passive consumers foreshadowed the present-day discussions about interaction and multimedia as the mass media of the 21st century.


 
Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Leaflet printed for the showNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Participation TVNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Paticipation TVNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Participation TVNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Participation TVNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Participation TVNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Prepared PianosNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Participation TVNam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | Reconstruction, 1989Nam June Paik «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television» | play video

Categories: Interactive Environment

Keywords: Apparatus | Exhibition | Intermedia | Fluxus

Source text:

Paik, Nam June «AFTERLUDE to the Exposition of EXPERIMENTAL TELEVISION»

Relevant passages:

icon: authorGolo Föllmer «Audio Art»| icon: authorRudolf Frieling «Reality/Mediality Hybrid Processes Between Art and Life»| icon: authorHeike Helfert «Technological Constructions of Space-Time Aspects of Perception»| icon: authorInke Arns «Interaction, Participation, Networking: Art and Telecommunication»| icon: authorRudolf Frieling icon: authorDieter Daniels «Milestones of Media-Art»| icon: authorGolo Föllmer icon: authorJulia Gerlach «Audiovisions. Music as an Intermedia Art Form.»

Works by Nam June Paik:

Action with a violin on a string (staged during «Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»)| Baroque Laser| Buddha| German Pavilion: Marco Polo| documenta-performance| Electronic Art II| Etude for Piano| Global Groove| Good Morning, Mr. Orwell| Hommage à John Cage: Music for Tape Recorder and Piano| I-Ching/Et-Ching| Kuba-TV| Magnet TV| Mayor Lindsay| McLuhan Caged (in Electronic Art II)| One for Violin Solo| Participation TV| performance in the Ramsbott home| Random Access Music: Exposition of Music – Electronic Television| Robot K-456| Schallplatten-Schaschlik: Exposition of Music – Electronic Television| Simple| As Boring As Possible| Traitor, you left fluxus (Postcard to Nam June Paik)| Triangle| tv with microphone| TV Set for your Mind| TV Story Board| TV-Buddha| TV-Garden| Primitive Music| Video-Tape Monthly Magazine| Wrap around the World| Yellow Peril !| Zen for Film| Zen for Head

Check as well:

Wolf Vostell «Sun in Your Head»| Wolf Vostell «Television Décollage»


Wuppertal | Germany
 

 Nam June Paik
«Exposition of Music – Electronic Television»

Paik’s first major exhibition was held from 11 to 20 March 1963 in a gallery run by architect Rolf Jährling in his private residence. The title Paik chose indicates his transition from music to the electronic image. Four ‘prepared’ pianos, mechanical sound objects, several record and tape installations, twelve modified TV sets, and the head of a freshly slaughtered ox above the entrance awaited visitors. The show ran for ten days and opened for two hours daily between 7.30 and 9.30pm.
Newspaper reports indicate that visitors to the show, which was distributed over the entire house (and did not stop at the private quarters of the Jährling family), experienced the show and its setting as a ‘total event’, many guests taking no more than a perfunctory glance at the room with TV sets. Today, this room is seen as the starting point of the video art that later developed, although Paik, not yet having access to video equipment, was still modifying inexpensive second-hand TV sets to distort the TV programmes as they were being broadcast. Germany had only one TV station up to 1963, and it broadcast for no more than a few hours each evening – possibly explaining the late opening-time of Paik's show. Unlike the Fluxus actions which took place concurrently, Paik’s project did not attract TV coverage.