Nam June Paik, climate change and the moon

By Lee Kyung-hwa

"We choose to go to the moon" said John F. Kennedy in 1961. In 1969, the United States achieved the first successful Apollo 11 moon landing. And not long ago, Tesla founder Elon Musk announced that he was accepting tourists for his private lunar travel project, "Dear Moon."

Throughout human history and up to the present age, we have looked to the moon as a source of inspiration and aspiration. The moon: humanity's only hope.

At the current historical juncture, even pleasant phenomena may be cause for dismay. The warmth of the sun reminds us of climate change. The cool water droplets falling from the clouds make us think of acid rain.

Philosopher Bruno Latour wrote: "Now it is one moon in the night sky. It is the only object we can look at without feeling any discomfort." Current climate change and ecological issues, the war in Ukraine, the division and isolation experienced during and after COVID-19, and the economic crisis that has resulted ― all these are the situation we are in now.

In 1984, Nam June Paik released his satellite art show, "Good Morning Mr. Orwell." This project, which has been referred to as a "moonlight sonata in the electronic age," transmitted to the world through an artificial satellite mimicking the moon in the sky. This work featured Beatles music videos, celebrities, and artists from around the world, including John Cage, Joseph Beuys, Charlotte Moorman, Yves Montand and Laurie Anderson.

At the time, George Orwell's novel "1984" predicted a dystopia and Paik responded cheerfully with humor and satire. He proposed a reality in which high-tech media and humans could coexist and be connected through art.

An important aspect of this connection is Paik's coalescence of Eastern and Western thought with scientific and technological principles. He channeled his insight to envision art as a means of multifaceted communication, exclaiming, "For the first time in human history, the result of weakness overcoming power!"

I have recently been drawn to symbols of this phenomenon in the natural world. One such symbol is exemplified by Shuya Abe's work, "Solar Eclipse," imagery from which I sampled in a video I made a while back. During a solar eclipse, the moon moves in front of the sun, creating a temporary and beautiful phenomenon.

In the 1960s, a young, physically unimpressive Asian artist posed an eclipse of his own: a bold and shocking challenge to the eurocentric art world. This artist was Nam June Paik. After studying aesthetics and music at the University of Tokyo during the 1950-53 Korean War, he moved to Germany and the United States to establish video art.

Paik's video art relies on multiple monitors. Conceptually, his work connects sound, electron movement, media and entails the harmonization of disparate elements. From a Western perspective, it is a festival. The delightful artistry of Paik has given rise to a network of interconnected minds and brings the future into the present, converting the crises of the world into a celebration.

In Korean history, we have traditionally been a nation of singing and dancing. The phenomenon of BTS' K-pop culture can be seen as a modern resurgence of this. Just as BTS has now become the hope of young people around the world, Paik had already captured the hearts of people around the world through art at that time.

In the Neolithic age, the moon was the equivalent of the television of the 20th century. With the emergence of the internet and the smartphone in the 21st century, the metaphor may now even extend to the metaverse.

Paik, who said that the role of an artist is to think about the future, was a true genius. At the current historical moment, we have witnessed non-eurocentric histories supplanted and minimized by the colonization of Western-centrism for centuries, as well as occasions of renewal.

In East Asian Buddhism and philosophy, the moon is often compared to a woman's womb, which symbolizes Buddha's compassion and vitality. In the poem, "Electronical Moon," King Sejong points to the Buddha-nature that is reflected and thus resides in all waters throughout the earth.

The screen of a TV monitor with electron beams flowing through it is like the surface of the water illuminated by the moonlight on a dark night.

The scan lines on a TV monitor are a metaphor for the ripples of every water surface on earth. When the water flows, the moon flows with it; when the water stops flowing, the moon stops with it and when the water swirls, the moon swirls with it.

The moon has long been an image of vision and connection to the future. The famous bra composed of television sets, worn by Charlotte Moorman as she played the cello in "TV Bra for Living Sculpture," showed the first American astronaut landing on the moon in 1969. If Paik were alive today, he might have aired footage in which billionaires such as Elon Musk go on a trip to the moon.

Now, as Bruno Latour suggests, our hope is the moon. When Pandora broke the taboo and opened her box, all the evils within ― disease, sadness, poverty, war, hatred ― broke free, and the last thing that remained was hope. Humanity has always kept this hope.

I would like to suggest Paik, an unimposing young man from the East who took on this challenge in the 20th century, as the most important writer to be reexamined in the 21st. In a world troubled by chaos and darkness, the spirit of his work, which addressed issues such as technology, the environment and human rights, will shine brightly like the moonlight.

Lee Kyung-hwa (kyunghwaleeart@gmail.com) is a globally renowned artist director and designer. She is international director of the Nam June Paik Cultural Foundation.