Nam June Paik was a pioneering video artist who revolutionized the art of video and television. Born on July 20, 1932, in Seoul, South Korea, Paik was the fifth son of a textile manufacturer. He developed a passion for music and art, studying piano in Seoul and later enrolling in the University of Tokyo, where he earned a degree in art, music history, and philosophy.
Paik's fascination with electronic media led him to continue his music studies in Germany, where he collaborated with renowned composers Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage. This collaboration inspired his transition into electronic arts, and he began to experiment with modified TV monitors, electronic music, and video performance.
In 1963, Paik presented his first solo show, "Exposition of Music-Electronic Television," in Germany, featuring modified TV monitors. He continued to push the boundaries of video art, experimenting with video cameras, electromagnets, and color TV. His groundbreaking interactive video-works began in 1965, and he went on to create random patterns of light by causing distortions to the electron emission spot on a phosphorous screen.
Paik's use of multiple TV monitors and robots made of TV sets, metal, and electronic components became a hallmark of his work. His TV project "TV Buddha" featured a statue of a sitting Buddha facing its own image on a closed-circuit TV. He also created the first video synthesizer with engineer Shuya Abe in 1969.
Paik's largest project was "Wrap around the World," designed for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. The project featured a giant media-tower shaped like a birthday cake, called "The More the Better," and used 1003 TV monitors for a non-stop presentation of video-art images and performances by Korean drummers and international artists.
Throughout his career, Paik was credited with coining the phrase "Information Superhighway" in 1974, and his work had a profound impact on the art of video and television. He continued to create innovative works until his death on January 29, 2006, in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.
