Paik Namjune, founder of video art, uses TV as a modeling material as well as a medium for communicating with audiences. He has opened a new horizon in contemporary art. He showed avant-garde works combining various kinds of art forms including music, video, performance, and literature. With active experiments using laser and cutting-edge digital technologies, his works reflect on the ever-changing social development phases. Through his various works, Paik Namjune expresses his creative reinterpretation of the concept of TV through his deep philosophical contemplation on electronic technology to stress the point that humans are not beings bound by TV and video systems but creators of mechanical and material civilization. This is the reason human warmth is felt in his works instead of mechanical coldness. With an enormous influence in the broad domain of mass media culture and art, deep philosophical meanings contained in his witty performance have given artistic inspiration to many artists. “Digitation”, installed at the center of Gwangalli Beach, Busan, plays the role of a symbolic lighthouse with a 360-degree view encompassing all the participating artists’ works while, like torches lit for nighttime fishing (Jindueohwa), wishing for Busan City’s prosperity and the New Media Art Museum’s progress.
By Park Jieun (freelance curator, Seoul and Paris)