The associations to music, dance, and movement are obvious:
the visual rhythm presented in Global Groove 2004 is characterized
by an overload of images, sounds, and information, one that every
inhabitant of the total media society is subjected to. In the catalogue,
John Hanhardt, curator of the exhibition, wrote: ”The effect can be
likened to postmodern vaudeville, where artists and moving-image
selections take turns on a constantly shifting stage.” (Find more
Information about The Worlds of Name June Paik, a retrospective
curated by Hanhardt at the Guggenheim New York
here) At the same time, the installation testifies to Paik’s life-long
concern to change this beat with any means available and to break it, to
manipulate it, expose its inherent laws, and question it. Paik pits his
own artist’s universal sense of self against technological progress. To
his mind, art shouldn’t only reflect the development of technology and
media, but interfere with it directly and help determine its future
course. As a composer, performer, engineer, inventor, philosopher, and
enfant terrible, he not only developed entirely new forms of sculpture and
installation art – early on, in collaboration with a team of technicians,
he created complex tools such as the
Paik/Abe Synthesizer (1969), which was able to manipulate electronic
images in a completely unique way. The same year, he wrote: ”The real
issue implied in ”Art and Technology” is not to make another scientific
toy, but how to humanize the technology and the electronic medium, which
is progressing rapidly…”
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N.J.Paik, Video-Synthesizer, 1969/92
Kunsthalle Bremen
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Fred Barzyk, Shuya Abe and Nam June
Paik with their syntheziser at WGBH -TV in Boston, Massachusetts
Photo: C.O. White, Boston
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In his essay Global Groove and Video Common Market
(1970), Paik formulated the theoretical concept that the original version
of Global Groove was to follow in 1973: in the manner of the
European Community, every television company in the world was supposed to
offer their productions to one other and set up a free video market.
Deeply affected by the events of the
Vietnam War, Paik held the prejudices television spreads to be responsible
for much of the world’s misery, contending that the Asians depicted on
western television were primarily destitute refugees or members of inhuman
dictatorships, whereas the people in these countries for the most part
consumed harmless entertainment programs much like most American middle
class families did. On the other hand, an exchange of programs would open
up narrow perspectives and make a direct mutual understanding possible.
Nam June Paik on his TV Chair,
Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1976
Phooto: Friedrich Rosenstiel
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Nam June Paik: Global Groove, 1973, Video
Still
Courtesy of Electronic
Arts Intermix © Electronic Arts Intermix
Videos, satellite television, video games, websites, chatrooms,
surveillance equipment: in the face of a steadily rising flood of media
imagery worldwide, it might seem as though Paik’s utopia of global
communication has long since arrived. As the Guggenheim curator Caitlin
Jones has expressed in her catalogue essay, however, we are still very far
away from the active exchange of information Paik is propagating.
”Restrictions of use, however – be they through the tightening of
copyrights, rights clearances, and market monopolization – keep these
images from being used as the Video Common Market envisions.” (Read
exerpts from Caitlin Jones essay Escape from "Videoland"
here) In the meantime, the internet’s promises are being met by a booming
industry providing private users, institutions, and firms with viral
protection programs and ”firewalls” to repel intruders and other
illegitimate access.
Early on, Paik – who was often termed a ”video
terrorist” – sought alternative forms of distribution that were also meant
to reach a wider public beyond the art context. In 1969, he installed his
Paik-Abe-Video Synthesizer with several monitors, cameras, and circuits in
the Boston laboratory of the broadcaster
WGBH. Utilizing
chroma keying, mixing and magnetic procedures as well as various color and
form filters, he composed 9/23/69 Experiment with David Atwood (
Atwood was a technician at the WGBH studio), one of the most magnificent
creations from the first decade of video history meant to be followed by a
series of television productions. In the eighties, a highpoint occurred
with satellite projects such as
Good Morning, Mr. Orwell, a program broadcast on January 1 1984 in
Korea, Germany, Holland, France, and the US. The tempestuous video mix
unites stars, composers, and artists into a live version of Global
Groove. Along with the moderators
George Plimpton in New York and Jacques Villars in Paris,
Laurie Anderson, Joseph
Beuys, Phillip Glass,
Yves Montand, Ben Vautier, and
the band Urban Sax took part.
Nam June Paik: Global Groove, 1973, Video Still
Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix © Electronic Arts Intermix
Global Groove 2004 not only elucidates Paik’s visions, but also recalls
his role as a pioneer: Paik had already coined the term
”information superhighway” in 1974, nearly twenty years before
the internet embarked on its worldwide path to victory. In this sense,
Global Groove 2004 invites us to a dance: in the ideal case, everyone
should take creative part in the global data flow, whether as artist,
hacker, scientist, theoretician, or critical recipient – with Paik’s art
as nothing more (or less) than a proposal. This was how Paik expressed it
in an interview with
Tilman Baumgärtel in 2000: ”I thought: if you create a highway,
then people are going to invent cars. That’s dialectics.”
Translation: Andrea Scrima
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