Janet Lee- Looking Outwards-01

As I was living in Korea, I came across this artist called Nam June Paik. His artwork and his philosophy “touch my art like it’s your toy” caught my attention. He is well known for his video/media art. Out of his whole projects, I liked “Tv Garden” which was produced by about thirty televisions lying by tropical leaves. It was interesting to me that he combined television and nature without a definite meaning to it. I do feel like this project would have been more effective if the tv screens included a lot more scenes of nature. Though, I also feel like he intentionally excluded a lot of nature scenes to make people question about his work. Paik once wrote that he wanted “to shape the tv screen as precisely as Leonardo and as freely as Picasso”. His purpose of his work was to not conform his work in a traditional way but to freely express himself.

https://www.arts.gov/photos/nam-june-paik-artist-who-invented-video-art

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/tv-garden/images/2/

http://www.variablemedia.net/f/introduction/case_paik_tvgar.html