CONTEXTUAL INSPIRATIONS: NAM JUNE PAIK

Nam June Paik is widely acknowledged as the father of video art. He was highly influential in smoothing its acceptance into the mainstream art-world. Video Art was often viewed as an imposter in art galleries in its formative years but due to the often sculptural nature of his early work he helped to path the was. He famously said that this newfound medium would “enable us to shape the TV screen canvas as precisely as Leonardo, as freely as Picasso, as colourfully as Renoir.”

His sculptural work is exceptionally playful and he used TV screens to build, musical instruments, animals and robots fro re-appropriated TV sets and screens creating both a message through the sculptures and the screens used to construct them. This is an idea that I am interested in playing with rather than just screening the work as a projection to possibly construct forms from screens to contain the work.

His work can be multiple screen installations and often uses TV screens to force home the idea of viewing. His huge scale works are really impressive using a great multitude of screens all working to create images independently and as a whole. I really love these large scale works but maybe they may be a little ambitious for my current first installation work but are definitely something I would like to work towards. His themes and techniques are many and varied and often appropriates distorted mass media, including newsreel, concert footage, and commercials. He is happy to borrow from mainstream culture as well as high art and his work never lacks impact, power or a sense of humour. All of these are attributes i would like to pursue in my own pieces.