In our contemporary day and age, much of the film and video industry is perceived in society as either entertainment or advertisement. For Paik Nam June, video was the highest form of art. Believing in the power and ubiquity of technology to harmonize a broken world, Paik Nam June forever influenced Western media through his prophetic vision of television in the future generations.

Born in 1932 into a privileged family, Paik nevertheless lived in a period of severe political conflict and left Korea in 1950 due to the Korean War, eventually arriving in Japan to study aesthetics at the University of Tokyo. Later, he left for Germany to study for avant-garde music (a category of unconventional, provocative music) and befriended fellow contemporaries John Cage and George Maciunas. He became deeply involved in the neo-Dada Fluxus movement, an artistic revolution that sought to cast out the traditional reverence of “high art,” to commercialize art to society, and to satirize but also exalt a commonplace object into a work worthy of appreciation. 

After moving to New York in 1964, he became an artistic pioneer immersed himself into technology art: he was the first of many to create abstract art on television through contorting the images with a magnet, the first of many to make use of a portable video camera, and the first to invent a color video synthesizer along with collaborator Shuya Abe. In New York, he also met his Japanese wife, Shigeko Kubota, who was initially his fan before marriage; they worked together and advocated for the Fluxus movement together in America. He lectured at German universities, but he lived mainly in New York and eventually passed away in Florida after an exploration in laser technology in his media sculptors. 

Furthermore, Paik advocated for the freedom of art distribution and commercialization, believing that art’s sole objective was to make art available in order that all might enjoy and interpret it. Along with being racialized as an Asian American in the US, many injustices allowed him to see not only the intrinsic value of freedom as a human being but also the freedom of accessibility to resources. Seeing the greatness of humanity’s power to invent and create art, Paik believed everyone should have access to art through technology so as to channel their own creativity while appreciating the work of others. Such art that was provocative and soul-searching deserved the public’s attention.

Indeed, Paik now deservedly holds the title “Father of Video Art.” He invented his own term “super-electronic highway” when he developed a 3D model of America with televisions and neon lights, giving honor to the new country he immigrated into. Ultimately, Paik showed himself as a genius ahead of his time for prophesying an era of hyper connectivity to the screen and complete access to any information anyone could ever want.