Nam June Paik at Tate Modern is a reminder of art’s prescience in raising awareness of changes in our world. His viewpoint on the way technology can and has changed our lives is, by and large, accurate. It’s startling to note the dates of pieces and see just how ahead of his time he was.
I enjoyed the simplicity of the concept of Magnet TV 1965 below as well as the gorgeous petal-like shapes made.
His exploration of how the medium can distort the message in Nixon 1965 – a satirical take on “truth”.
Uncle & Aunt, robots from the mid-eighties, give a non-threatening view of how integral technology has become to our family lives. I love the clunky feel of these, so different from the slick machines we actually see decades later.
This interactive piece, Random Access, had families making their own different series of sounds by running a player head over magnetic tape at different speeds on the wall.
I can’t have been the only one to notice affinities with some of Olafur Eliasson’s work when I looked at One Candle (Candle Projection) 1989.
Nam June Paik also saw the possibilities of the internet before it actually happened. It’s remarkable explorers like him who envisage a future that others are not yet aware of.