THE FUTURE IS NOW
- Filter
TV Garden
Artist
Nam June PaikDating
1974—1977, reconstructed 2002On Screens
Nam June Paik and John Godfrey
Global Groove
1973
Video, single channel, colour, sound, 28 min 30 sec
Produced by the TV Lab at WNET/Thirteen, New York
Director: Merrily Mossman
Narrator: Russell Connor
Film footage: Jud Yalkut and Robert Breer
Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Medium
Live plants and cathode-ray tube televisions and video
Dimensions variable
Credits
Collection of Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Dusseldorf
On Screens
Nam June Paik and John Godfrey
Global Groove
1973
Video, single channel, colour, sound, 28 min 30 sec
Produced by the TV Lab at WNET/Thirteen, New York
Director: Merrily Mossman
Narrator: Russell Connor
Film footage: Jud Yalkut and Robert Breer
Courtesy of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
TV Garden is Paik’s imagined future landscape where technology is an integral part of the natural world. Placing television sets amongst live plants, he creates an environment in which the seemingly distinct realms of electronics and nature coexist. His approach follows the Buddhist philosophy that everything is interdependent. It also suggests that technology is not in conflict with nature but an extension of the human realm.
The monitors in this version of TV Garden display Paik’s music video work Global Groove, a colourful and dense mix of avant-garde, pop, and commercial imagery that brought together many of the themes central to him. It addressed global telecommunications and predicted a shift in the way different cultures, disciplines and art forms could connect and combine in mass media.
