Nam June Paik, 1932-2006, is a revolutionary gentleman of the neo-Dada Fluxus and a world citizen of Seoul, Tokyo, many cities in Germany, New York, and Miami. He studied 20th Century music, and applied that aesthetic to video as art.
He remixed content, circuit bent the box, built sculptures of TVs, incorporated television into performance, and built TV art robots. He was in the downtown art crowd of the 1960s; influenced, influencer, and collaborator.
Paik's Robot K-456 participated in many performances. https://cyberneticzoo.com/robots-in-art/1964-robot-k-456-nam-june-paik-korean-shuya-abe-japanese/
Based on the Intergalactic Network idea of J.C.R. Licklider in 1962, the concept of the Internet emerged. Portlander Ivan Sutherland, seminal in computer graphics, was in that mix at MIT. Sutherland was advisor to Alan Kay, originator of the Dynabook concept we use today. In 1969, the first 3-location Internet was completed by a small team; a friend of mine made the hardware. Contemporaneouly, Gene Youngblood's Expanded Cinema, published in 1970, included Paik as an influence. In turn, Youngblood's ideas were an influence on thinking of the Internet, pre-its scale-out, as a cultural and artistic, medium and force. If you can find it, Youngblood's Mass Media and the Future of Desire, 1977, is a read on the topic. That essay mentions a book, never completed, in collaboration with Maturana and Varela who incluenced Flores. Flores collaborated with Winnograd, AI pioneer. Winnograd was the faculty advisor of Larry Page. As a coda, Paik is credited with coining the phrase "electronic superhighway."
Unfortunately post-his death, a split developed between the estate and Paik's gallery, the Carl Solway Gallery. Fortunately his works have been cradled by museums, he has been the subject of many retrospectives, and has been reprised in documentaries.
A new one, 2023, is Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV .
It is in the collection of Movie Madness and the Hillsboro Library. It's on the big screen tonight too https://hollywoodtheatre.org/tickets/21795/ at Hollywood Theater 7:30PM unfortunately Sold Out
