“Nam June Paik: Becoming Robot”

Who Nam June Paik and why was he so obsessed with the machine and its place here within humanity?

Paik was a progressive Buddhist, artist, composer and a machinist of sorts, but above all it seems that Nam June Paik was an entertainer.  Paik was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1932, moved to Hong Kong in 1949 and then migrating to Japan a year later. At Tokyo University, Paik studied art and music, and then pursued further musical studies in Germany. Eventually he was based in New York City art Scene of the mid-60s.

Not only did he compose music, he began experimenting with sculpture and performance. Using the technology of the time, Paik fused front-edge electronic media: television, personal videotape recorders, and primitive home computers, by combing them with a sensationalist flair slanting to a popular audience. He maintained this perspective by working with same wavelength human collaborators, mostly artists, and those open to his abstract world of circuits and video. The most important being was Charlotte Moorman his main collaborators and muse who was in her own right an eccentric and talented cellist artist, who paired with Paik on several projects.

At first glance I did not know what to think of the primitive interface of his creations. Wires and lights projecting from this skeletal frame of moshed up metal that barely resembles a manly figure. The exhibit walls bare sketches of robots, personal notes and electronic remembrances of Paik’s futuristic mind, of man and machine living in unison as a collective. His use of video as an art form portrays itself in such disturbing yet cohesive manner of Television bodies and Visuals as a platform to incite and perplex.

 Upon entering the exhibit I came across Paik’s first automated robot. Robot K-456, this robot was programmed to walk, talk, and poop beans.  K- 456 functioned through twenty radio channels and a remote control. It was understood that Paik intended to shock viewers with the robot’s ability to interact with humans.

I myself upon viewing one of the monitors felt a certain way seeing this robot gliding across Madison Avenue as on lookers were shocked seeing  this entity be hit by a car various times. You can see the concern for this A.I become all too human. I actually felt connected for a quick second with K- 456. If Paik’s intention was to fuse if only momentarily humankind with machine through empathy, I personally feel he has succeeded. I am very glad I came to see this innovative Artist, who laid the ground work for future digital expression to evolve.