SCAN + Australian International Video Festival SCAN t Australian International Video Festival

NAM JUNE PAIK I NTERVIEW The following interview with the New York- reason for this difference between the installa- highly regarded in non-French speaking video art . I said `electronic televi- based pioneer video artist, Nam June Paik, tions? countries, like England, like America and sion art' at that time, since I was took place during his visit to the 8th Biennale also Japan, because it's difficult to un- doing electronic music art, which was of Sydney. NJ.P. Yes, that's an interesting ques- derstand. Academic people know they have to not doing too well. tion. In both shows we used identical tapes, deal with complications . They think McLuhan So then the first show was a hit, and then the N.Z: Perhaps Icould begin byasking because we didn't have any money to re-edit is too much talked about, and is not academic second showwas a hit and the third showwas a you about your. installation at Documenta 8 them - we just copied them. However, in the enough. It's very hard to make a science out hit, so I stayed with this medium. And when I entitled: Beuys' Voice. Whatsortofthingswere Hayward show we didn't have any money t, of communications because it is changing came to this American country, it was rather you trying to do with that footage of Beuys' rent that T.V. Wall system. So we used this very fast, and in a way, it's too large. So easier to raise money in television, because performance? Were you interested in register- Documenta main channel which went into the Sydney; French - and also kind of Labour-left official television was so bad. You said, oh I'm ing it as a performance? T.V. Wall undecorated - you know, natural 10th April, British people made these kind of post- working with television, and everyone was Beuys-as one channel. The other two channels 1990 Marxist theories. For some reason semiotic throwing money at you, you know! Also, we N J.P: That's a good question. But were decorated, computerized video. So, people like to be very manneristic - they have to be written up in the newspapers and artists-generallyspeaking, you know-we don't without the T.V. Wall, the proportion of hang on to very little things. They're ba- stuff in gallery shows and museums. So you really set out to do any concrete objective. So, decorated, computerized tape became bigger. sically sort of French-based people who speculate - oh well, I did this, next I did this, in my case, when I make an artwork, we start Whereas atDocumenta, most likely, mostpeople kind of missed the bus of revolution, and next I'll do this. from a few given conditions. One condition just watched Beuys' undecorated tape, at the who want to make a rear-guard critique In the case ofso-called important visual art- was that I was invited to do a big work by centre. They didn't pay attention to the left or about it. I respect theory when it is bold ists, painters, they in a way got their style fixed Documenta. And then, we had just finished a right, which iscomputerized tape. So everything and something new. Cybernetics I respect, up by their mid-thirties- numbers, silkscreens performancewithjosephBeuysinTokyo, where most likely looked more complicated to you. because you can learn something from it. I oncanvas, dots and enlarged comics and so on. I played a piano and he- he kind of screamed. think I read one book by Foucault and then I don't say that they make compromises . But It was quite an interesting performance - he N.Z. Which version did you prefer onebook by Barthes, and one by one more guy. other artists get fixedwith styles which became liked it very much. Also, Beuys is popular in yourself? But when I study how much time I spent, I successful. Some artistschange and have twoor Germany - he's popular everywhere - but this didn't get too much out of it. So I thought three styles. Atmostyou can have three styles in piece wasforGermany! So I thought, I'm going NJ.P. I don't care! But the computer- I would keep a kind of respectful distance your lifetime. to do something with Beuys on that perform- ized version was more expensive - that's all I from it, and then I will use my time more Ofcourse, everything in video is in one style, ance . So first I tried to use multiple projectors care. productively, that is, making video-tapes but in my case, I think I changed that a little but it didn't work out so well. Then there was a and computer-tapes, and computer pro- more . Because number one, my work has not new technology available - multivision, or the N.Z. All the same, you seem very gramming. been profitable here, until three years ago. So so-called `T.V. Wall' . It's quite expensive they much committed to work with the new media, My work is rather popular in France, so I I have no reason to hang up into one style. And were renting it for ten thousand marks for and to the significance of the new media arts. asked my French friends whether they think I secon4, all the electronic industry here has three days. So I gave up for a long time . But Thisserious motivation seems tobe overlooked should spend X number of hours to study progressed very much. Think - at the time afterall, Documenta is a big opportunity to excel by some of your critics, such as the American semiotics or not, and everybody laughed, and when I was doing video, you know, itwas 1963, and you don't gettoo many offers, and then, by theorist FredricJameson, whose catalogue es- told me, you are much more advanced than before Sony had even introduced their video that time, Beuys had died, so the information say for the Boston Institute of Contemporary they are - why should you spend your time recorder. The only home video available was had become more dramatic. So, through our Arts "Utopia" show, in 1988, suggested that studying semiotics? So that is my relation to Grundwig's camera. So for the last thirty years friends, we inquired how much a couple of there was no point in expecting your installa- semiotics . If somebody has a Phd., and gets a video technology has changed. So when new companies would charge for three months in tionsto offercoherentart. He argueselsewhere teachingjob in semiotics, that'sfine! However, hardware combinations came up, either in the summer. And because in summer there are that video is a mobile medium, which may only I have no time for that! home video, or more important, in computer no trade fairs, theygave ittous for $100,000. So generate superficial, ever-changing effects. programming in industry, I have more oppor- it became more orless feasible. Documentagave Takingthis argumentone stepfurther,jameson N.Z. Going back to the notion of tunities to try out new combinations of new me $40,000 or DM40,000-I forget-and I raised likes to argue that Post-Modern culture as a content in video, would you say that you're hardware and newsoftware. Hardware-software maybe $60,000-I forget! So we did it. And that whole consists almost exclusively ofsuperficial interested in communicating some general combinations are very, very rich, almost inex- was a kind of process. Artists, generally, have effects without any special meaning. What is sort of message or content? Or are you most haustible. not profound theories, you know - we have your response to that kind of argument? interested in exploring new sorts of process? And then, obviously, I was not that bad in instincts, and then practical methods after- Orwould you say that it's a combination ofthe that application - there are other guys that are wards. The main channel was normal Beuys, NJ.P. Where did he write that? two, or perhaps something else? worse. So, for two reasons, because I did' not undecorated. And then there were two chan- make much money until three years ago, and nels, left and right, where I and Paul Garrin, N.Z . In an essay entitled'Reading NJ.P. You know, we are, as I told you, because hardware keeps changing, I keep did some computer processing. So it was really without Interpretation : postmodernism and an artist- and work with intuition - so we have, changing. Soyour question isalmostirrelevant. successful like that. It went very well. So that the video-text' in an anthology entitled The maybe, a higher rate of metabolism, so we get Art-making isfor anybody likebreathing-luckily was the inside story. Linguistics of Writing. Also in Flash An Decem- tired of it very quickly. So when in 1960 I did we don't have to go to the post-office and use ber '86/January'87, there's an interview with some sortofperformance art, itwasverynice at stamps. We are a kind of privileged class - we N .Z. I think I saw another version of him, inwhich he'sfairlydismissive aboutvideo. first. You know, I got kind of known in Fluxus don't have to work very hard. So we don't have that piece at your retrospective in London, at circles in Germany. And then I met Beuys, who to set up any objectives. the Hayward Gallery. Itseemed a more compli- NJ.P. Yes-the so-called semiotic peo- was not yet known . Then I was approaching cated piece, because therewere not onlymoni- ple, you know, they don't like video! thirty-one and I got tired of performance art. N.Z. I suppose your explorations of tors which showed your work with Beuys, but At the same time also I needed to make some new media are like swimming in an endless other screens which seemed to show a lot of N.Z. Why do you think that is? money and then I started to make some obiects ocean. unrelated images going by at tremendous sonores-you know, sound objects. then, slowly, speed. I found it more difficult to understand NJ.P. I don't know really. I don't un- slowly, I gotattracted to television. So I thought, NJ.P. A tabula rasa, you know a white or to read what was going on. Was there any derstand semiotics. Most likelysemiotics is quite well, you know it's kind of nice to do the first paper. Video is a white paper, a tabula rasa 12 13

SCAN t Australian International Video Festival

NAM JUNE PAIK Warhol'sclaim thathe wanted to be amachine, N.Z . Are there some pieces that you whereas you want machines to be human. thinkhaveworked particularly well, not only as a new process, but as a new way of saying N.J.P. Yes. For some reason this kind something about something beyond video? of quotation becomes famous, so obviously people need that. NJ.P. I get bad reviews still - Art in America recently wrote one. But I survive. If we N.Z. And what do you think of con- think deductively, then certainly Beuys' Voice temporary culture as a whole? Would you say was successful. And another which was a very that we're living in a corny culture? successful piece is TV Garden, where you see lots of T.V.s among the leaves. That was very NJ.P. Contemporary culture? As a successfulI thinkfor two reasons, threereasons. whole? One is that people look down at T.V. here, so itwas kind ofa new position. And in away, you N.Z. Well, that's a very big question, are fixed into one TX., generally, butyou look and probably a silly question. around. And I deliberately made it to look around, but when you watched T.V. your eye NJ.P. Yes. As you know, we are not got fixed. And most likely, the human instinct, Henry Kissinger-we arejust alittle player. lam the human nerve which is controlling the eyes' generally optimistic about the human future, nervous system, is very happy that they are because of the Soviet crumble. For instance, liberated from the one T.V. position, so that Milan Knizak, the Czech artist, was arrested you can look around.And obviously, ofcourse, three hundred and sixty times. He was in New the optic nerve likes that electronic impulse York when the tanks rolledin '68, buthe chose too, but also likes the natural habitatoflooking to go over to Czechoslovakia. So he had a hard around. So these two combinations made the time. But he is now the President of the Royal people happier watching TV Garden . Academy there. He was a real vagabond, a And then, of course, many people had Fluxus artist. And then, the President of thought that television is against ecology, but Lithuania, Vytautas Landsbergis, he was the in this case, television is part of ecology. Then best friend of George Macunias - they were it had nice colour, and nice rock n'roll music, class-mates in grade school. His father and and it was dark, with light flowing from leaves Landsbergis' father were best friends. And so, in various greens and various rhythms. And obviously, although our Liberal Left betted on then people were leaning onto railings in kind Karl Marx too long, and found they bet on the of comfortable positions, and could talk to wrong horse, the horse ofliberalism also won, their neighbours, whereas when you're so that's very nice. Of course all intellectuals watching T.V. or going to a movie, you don't are against technology, and all for ecology, talk to your neighbour. But in this case, all which is very important. But in a way, we are those disciplines are out, andyou can go in and inventing more pollution-free technology. We out at your leisure, like at ajohn Cage concert. intellectuals don't like cars and television, but I thinkthat basically speaking, the useofnatural we have to admit that compared to Charles leaves and television - that paradox - was im- Dickens' time, we are living better, no? So we portant for people. mustgive up certain parts ofintellectual vanity, and look at the good parts of so-called high- N.Z. Well, I think you've said that tech research. For instance, hydrogen power, you're interested in humanizing television and which nobody's talking about. It seems that video. people are getting smarter, and also thatin the Western world people are getting less aggres- N.J.P. That came from Human Use of sive. When I look at the art world, they are Human Beings - a book by Norbert Wiener. playing games very harshly, but still they're not NorbertWieneris afifties scientist- I thinkhe's asbad ascorporate games.Australian, Japanese a genius. Although it was corny, I used the or Korean artists - or whoever - who are not phrase `How to humanize technology' in the playing games in New York shouldn't pay so press release of the Howard Wise Gallery, in much attention to the New York art world. If '69. 1 thought it was very corny. But, for some you make your own art work and can make a reason, everybody quoted it and even now living, then that's good - if you're happy and keep quoting it, you know, twentyyears after! It don't have to dig up the ditches! was exactly in 1969 that I wrote that press When we started out becoming an artist, we release, anonymously . So, obviously, that rings didn't aim or even think about becoming a a bell for many people. famous artist. To take fame out of art, well that's the most important thing. Let's make N.Z. It'sprobably the reverse ofAndy thatthe closingstatementfor today. To takefame out oftheart-world . Thatwas the spirit ofFluxus. 14