NamJune Paik
video art / multimedia / glitch art
'My experimental TV is not always interesting
but not always uninteresting.
Like nature, which is beautiful,
not because it changes beautifully,
but simply because it changes.'
—NamJune Paik
When I saw his exhibition at first time,I was so impressed by the huge installation art works.He became the first person to use television media to express art. His work combines art media technology, popular culture and avant-garde art, to influence contemporary art. In the field of video art, he also fully understands the artistic challenge of this new era led by him, he adheres to the idea of combining art and science and technology, and further believes that the central goal of combining art and technology is not to make another scientific toy, but to humanize technology and electronic media.
# Electronic Superhighway
Electronic Superhighway, 1974, fifty-one channel video installation , custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood.
His inspiration was the Intercontinental Expressway in the United States, he named this video device the ' electronic highway ' to express his vision for the future as technology advances. The future of communication will be borderless, and the Internet has succeeded in realizing this vision.He was attracted by the continent highway when he first come to the America.Through the neon light and television, memorized a colourful American impression to public.The different colors of the neon light show the significant differences between different regions of each area where the TV plays the most regional content.
# Magnet TV
Nam June Paik, Magnet TV, 1965, television (black and white, silent) with magnet, 28 ⅜ × 19 ¼ × 24 ½ inches (72 × 48.9 × 62.2 cm)
Magnet TV is one of his masterpieces. A magnet is placed on a TV and the audience can rotate the magnet to change the visual effect of the tv. The visual effect is rendered as a natural law without processing by artists and audiences.
# TV cello
Charlotte Moorman performs wearing artist Nam June Paik’s “TV Cello” and “TV Glasses,” New York, 1971.. Niam June Paik (American, born in Korea, 1932-2006), “TV Cello,” 1971): video tubes, TV chassis, Plexiglas boxes, electronics, and wiring.
P e r s o n a l
u n d e r s t a n d i n g :
And I am interested in that most of the media he use is CRT TV, also known as'big ass' TV.The biggest difference between CRT TV and today's TV is that CRT TV uses analog rather than digital.And the difference that we can actually feel is that most of the data lost in the process of converting the analog signal to a digital signal .The most direct manifestation is the pixel of photo,pixel particles will be seen by zooming in the digital photo.But the image that analog photo showed does not have any pixel particles whatever you zooming in anyway. For personal understanding,it is essentially artificially reorganized though the object showed by digital signal is infinitely close to the reality.I think it means natural things which can not perfectly restore.But for analog signal,it reappear the features of natural things though it has the noise.But what I'm trying to say is that the best material for humanizing electronic media is to use an electronic medium ,which is CRT TV, can get closer to a natural analog signal.
detail of the table at design Miami in 2014
P e r s o n a l
u n d e r s t a n d i n g :
Most of their works is full of movement,nature and interaction.They give meaningful to their design which is like telling a story to the audience.And in ephemerā,they use contemporary technology to revive traditional craft skill, design like an experiment.Through the movement,ephemerā showed the most incredible thing about nature is that everything is connected to each other and also harmonious.
JianGuo Sui
I seem to think of this as a companion to my life,
I'm alive with it growing,
and of course it can grow independently after I die,
but when it with me,
it's a realistic time,
—JianGuo Sui
# Shape of time
Shape of Time,painting @Sui Jianguo since 2006
Shape of Time,painting @Sui Jianguo 25,Dec.2015
He recorded the time go by in a a form of viscous encapsulation everday.It is a work that never ends,each time he rubbed the blue paint with wire and the paint ball got bigger and bigger with time go by.He got a small book hanging behind the door and he would sign his name every time after he rubbing.If he is not in Beijing or on the business trip,he would ask to other people to help he finish the ceremony. The existence of the abstract change of “time” is still inconclusive. People can only describe it by individual reference. This kind of implication and mystery is not separated from its source. As Cui Cancan said: “‘The Shape of Time’ echoes the most central part of Sui Jianguo’s concept of creation; that is, the constant transformation of time and space, the beginning of a dark tunnel, the formation of a new concept of time and space and a world view.”
MOVEMENT
RESEARCHES-headwear
# Rick Owens 2012 FW RTW
Rick Owens says this season's new work is full of Brutalism (the idea that Brutalism originated in architecture, and that has led to the emergence of huge buildings made of undecorated concrete around the world). In the Backstage, hollowed-out ski masks on the models' heads can vaguely attest to this. Even Owens admits that the masks are rude. At first glance, the masks worn by the models look a lot like those worn by the police in the movie 'The Silence of the Lambs' to prevent Lecter from biting. So to get rid of that feeling, Owens insists on giving her models a classic look: white faces with red lips.
# Sibling SS15 Menswear
I want to use crocheted cover the face.So I researched some types of visual effects of knitting headwear. When I feel nervous and anxiety, It like a lot of thread cross together and messily wrapped on my head.I would use different knitting ways to express that feeling like combing thick and thin thread or wires together , knitting with layers, adding some beading...
# Threadstories
Irish visual artist threadstories crafts wearable textile masks that are often full-coverage, obscuring her face with layers of multi-colored yarn. The works are made with traditional techniques, and inspired by everything from the art of basketweaving to Francis Bacon’s distorted figural paintings. Each work begins with a crocheted balaclava which the artist uses as a base to attach each segment of material.
Conceptually, the masks question how we portray ourselves online and how this is influenced by a rapid decrease in personal privacy. “The masks deny the viewer the full story of who the sitter is, echoing the curated or false personas we portray and view online daily,” threadstories tells Colossal. “The masks are mutations of our private and public selves.”
# TV garden
Nam June Paik, TV Garden, 1974, single-channel video (color, sound) with live plants and monitors, dimensions variable
From: https://gagosian.com/quarterly/2018/10/16/life-and-technology-binary-nam-june-paik/
TV Garden (1974–78) likewise pairs recorded imagery with natural elements. Placed among lush plants like bright electronic blooms, the sets play Paik’s Global Groove (1973), an all-encompassing video and audio patchwork that juxtaposes images of performer friends such as Cage, Cunningham, and Moorman with traditional Korean and African dancers and with American jazz and rock. Here Paik draws parallels between the growth of plants and the development of television as a fertile technology.10 TV Garden also evokes the beauty of chance, apparent throughout nature and also throughout Paik’s video and television work. As Paik explained, “My experimental TV is not always interesting but not always uninteresting. Like nature, which is beautiful,not because it changes beautifully, but simply because it changes.”11 Calvin Tomkins wrote in 1975, “A true disciple of Cage,Paik did not want to make anything that would be a mere reflection of his own personality. What he was after was indeterminacy—the image created by chance—and he found that the behavior of electrons in a color television set was truly indeterminate.”12 Paik described his primary medium as “video compost”: disparate imagery from seemingly infinite sources that he constantly combined and reedited, poeticizing the potential of technology to connect a heterogeneous planet.
Mischer Traxler
furniture design
‘a conversation between mankind and nature’
# ephemerā
The creator says that if you go past a reindeer in the forest, it finds you or knows you're there, it will run away and hide, and we want to replicate that moment.
main image above: ephemerā for Perrier Jouët during Design Miami 2014, image credit: Oliver Manzi
ephemerā with one of our smaller visitors at Design Miami,image credit: Oliver Manzi
detail of a flying moth as part of the ephemerā installation,image credit:Oliver Manzi
additional frames showed all the selected plants and insects in detail, image credit: Gesi Schilling
These elements withdraw into the table or flatten themselves against its top when people approach.It's a table made of oak and on top there are water jet-cut metal elements resting in a laser-cut surface.Each of the elements is connected to a motor hidden beneath the table top. Around the table there are ultrasonic sensors that detect when people get too close and the elements on the table top become flat.The installation also includes two mirrors that feature similar botanical forms on their perimeter and across their surface. These too vanish when movement is detected nearby, turning them from decorative pieces to functional mirrors.Also,if you are at a big enough distance from the table it starts blooming, and the same with the mirrors. They become very decorative pieces. But if you come too close the table becomes flat and the mirrors become functional mirrors.
ephemerā mirror, image credit: Gesi Schilling
B R U T A L I S M
— Coarse and spectacular coexist
— Unique and bold
— Restore the architecture as it is
Brutalism, also known as Brutalist architecture, is a style that emerged in the 1950s and grew out of the early-20th century modernist movement. Brutalist buildings are characterised by their massive, monolithic and ‘blocky’ appearance with a rigid geometric style and large-scale use of poured concrete. The movement began to decline in prevalence in the 1970s, having been much criticised as unwelcoming and inhuman.Brutalism became a popular style throughout the 1960s as the austerity of the 1950s gave way to dynamism and self-confidence. Meanwhile it also became synonymous with the socially progressive housing solutions that architectsand town planners prioritised as modern ‘streets in the sky’ urbanism.
With an ethos of ‘social utopianism’, together with the influence of Constructivist architecture, it became increasingly widespread across European communist countries such as the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.Brutalism was generally characterised by its rough, unfinished surfaces, unusual shapes, heavy-looking materials, straight lines, and small windows. Modular elements were often used to form masses representing specific functional zones, grouped into a unified whole. As well as concrete, other materials commonly used in Brutalist buildings included brick, glass, steel, rough-hewn stone and gabions.As high-rise buildings began to be discredited and associated with crime, social deprivation and urban decay, so Brutalism became increasingly reviled, and across the UK, many Brutalistbuildings were demolished. Typical of this adverse reaction was the demolition in 2019 of the multi-storey car park in Welbeck Street, London W1 (pictured above and below). However, Brutalism has continued to influence later forms associated with high-tech architecture and deconstructivism. In recent years, it has started to be critically reappraised, with certain buildings being seen as architectural landmarks.
Some key examples of Brutalism include:
Prentice Women's Hospital
GEISEL LIBRARY
The Unité d’Habitation
PIRELLI BUILDING
TRELLICK TOWER