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Nam June Paik Predicted the Future by Melding Art and Technology

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Artsy

May 10, 2020

Nam June Paik, TV Garden, 1974-1977, reconstructed 2002
Nam June Paik, TV Garden, 1974-1977, reconstructed 2002. © Peter Tijhuis (Source)

Excerpt:

Critics don’t always get it right. Especially when it comes to art and how it changes in response to technological developments—their predictions of the future are often merely guesses, at best.

In Walter Benjamin’s seminal 1935 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” it was predicted that aura and tradition [...] would disappear as society became increasingly mechanized and mass produced. [...]

Decades later, however, Nam June Paik, a Korean-born artist, would challenge this assumption. Instead of causing art to sacrifice aura and tradition, Paik’s work proved how machines could be a positive force for culture, able to retain the best aspects of the past while pushing art into an innovative future. Almost all of his pieces are composed out of technological processes, or linked to them, and yet they still emanate individuality, artistic intention, and positivity.

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MLA
McIlhagga, Samuel. “Nam June Paik Predicted the Future by Melding Art and Technology.” Artsy, 10 May 2020, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nam-june-paik-predicted-future-melding-art-technology.
Chicago
McIlhagga, Samuel. “Nam June Paik Predicted the Future by Melding Art and Technology.” Artsy, May 10, 2020. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nam-june-paik-predicted-future-melding-art-technology.
APA
McIlhagga, S. (2020, May 10). Nam June Paik Predicted the Future by Melding Art and Technology. Artsy. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nam-june-paik-predicted-future-melding-art-technology
BibTex
@misc{McIlhagga2020Nam, author = {McIlhagga, Samuel}, year = {2020}, month = {may 10}, title = {Nam {June} {Paik} {Predicted} the {Future} by {Melding} {Art} and {Technology}}, howpublished = {https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-nam-june-paik-predicted-future-melding-art-technology}, }