Something Pacific: interactive bank of tv monitors inside Media Center, UCSD

Paik's Something Pacific for the Stuart Collection was his first permanent outdoor installation. This work relates specifically to its site, which includes the lobby of the university's Media Center as well as the lawns surrounding the building. Outdoors, the work features several ruined televisions embedded in the landscape; some are paired with Buddhas, and one, a tiny Sony Watchman, is topped by a miniature reproduction of Rodin's Thinker. In striking contrast to this video graveyard, the lobby of the Media Center houses one of Paik's lively interactive banks of TV monitors. By means of a control panel, viewers are able to manipulate sequences of Paik's own tapes and broadcast MTV.

"These live TVs are wired through MTV which used to be more interesting than it is now. Half of them are also wired through a Fairlight synthesizer so that the images can be manipulated by anyone. It was important to Nam June that this part of the installation be interactive and we are trying to figure out how to continue that aspect when this very old (1985) synthesizer finally fails. The TV sets were replaced in 2004 with new ones donated by Samsung." - Mary Beebe, Stuart Collection Director

• 1986

• Stuart Collection (San Diego, Calif.)

• Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)

• Paik, Nam June (South Korean sculptor, video artist, and performance artist, 1932-2006)

• Beebe, Mary Livingstone (American, born 1940)

Media Center: University of California, San Diego; La Jolla, California, United States

television monitors; video recordings

• Pacific Ocean

• Conceptual
• Environmental art
• Public art
• Public sculpture
• Site-specific works
• Television receivers

• University of California, San Diego--History

• Buddhism
• Contemporary
• Copies (derivative objects)
• Deterioration
• Graveyards
• Humor
• Korean
• Landscapes (environments)
• Mass media
• Meditation
• Nature
• Product obsolescence
• Religions (concept)
• Rubbish
• Ruins
• Space (composition concept)
• Technology
• Viewers (observers)

Point: 32.881197, -117.239983

• image

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

Film, Audio, Video and Digital Art

Science, Technology and Industry

Sculpture and Installations

• Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)

Under copyright (US)

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2022-10-27