Nam June Paik's 'analog immersive' installation revisited in present era of digital projections

Nam June Paik's "Sistine Chapel" (1993), Copyright Nam June Paik Estate, on display at the exhibition, "Nam June Paik, Super Baroque," at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province / Courtesy of NJP Art Center

Visionary creator's immersive media installations brought to light at 'Super Baroque' exhibition

By Park Han-sol

It was 1995 when Nam June Paik (1932-2006) flooded a small, centuries-old baroque church tucked away on the outskirts of Munster, Germany, with a kaleidoscopic laser projection ― birthing the installation titled "Baroque Laser."

With all the windows closed, the dark, enclosed chapel and its domed roof became a playground for the visionary creator to explore the potential of lasers as an artistic medium used for projecting 3D images, almost like a spectral hologram ― an inconceivable pursuit at the time.

"At the time, lasers were still a technology that hadn't been fully experimented with in creative projects, as they mainly belonged to the field of military (and science)," Lee Soo-young, curator of the Nam June Paik (NJP) Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, said during a recent press conference.

"The behemoth projectors were expensive, and required large water tanks nearby for cooling the whole system."

To commemorate the 90th anniversary of Paik's birth this year, the NJP Art Center has paid a special tribute to the revolutionary installation by displaying "Homage to Baroque Laser," which has been recreated by technician Lee Jung-sung, who had closely worked with the artist during his lifetime, as well as four other contemporary media artists.

The work is, in fact, one of the centerpieces of the art center's new exhibition, "Nam June Paik, Super Baroque," which opened on Paik's birthday, July 20.

Amid the recent fad of media facades and immersive digital projection mapping, the show is the gallery's attempt to bring to light the relatively "unfamiliar" side of the artist's oeuvre ― the one that it refers to as "analog immersive" ― through his large-scale media and laser installations.

"While Paik is already widely known as a pioneer when it comes to his experimentation with television and video, we wanted to take it a step further and showcase his site-specific media installations to broaden the public understanding of who he is," curator Lee noted.

"Homage to Baroque Laser" (2022) by Lee Jung-sung, Choi Jang-won, Hong Min-ki, Kang Sin-dae and Yun Je-ho / Courtesy of NJP Art Center

As a result, another highlight of the show materializes in "Sistine Chapel," which was unveiled at the 1993 Venice Biennale when Paik was awarded the Golden Lion for best national representation with the German Pavilion.

He filled an entire room of the pavilion, which stood at nine meters in height, with scaffolding and over 40 video projectors that "vomited" a psychedelic collage of images and cacophonic noise over every corner of the space, from the walls to the ceiling.

Likening it to a "disco," Paik himself characterized the experience of burying oneself in a dizzying array of overlapping images and sounds as "an intellectual experiment on how much information you can absorb."

Its title, "Sistine Chapel," reminds of an historical account involving Michelangelo, who was commissioned to paint iconic murals for the Vatican landmark in the 16th century.

"We can see that the role of the legendary painter, who produced the frescoes while on a 20-meter-high scaffold, has been replaced by 40 of these video projectors ― 'the new artists of our time' ― equally suspended on the scaffold here," Lee said.

It's a bold attempt to reimagine the dominant images of the Renaissance within our present-day media-saturated reality.

Nam June Paik's "One Candle" (1988), Copyright Nam June Paik Estate / Courtesy of NJP Art Center

But of course, "Nam June Paik, Super Baroque" doesn't end here. In addition to these two installations, the exhibition invites other pieces that also present the artist's creative efforts to broaden his realm of media during what he called the period of "post-video."

"One Candle" consists of a single lit candle that is recorded via camera in real time. The videos are then sent to the five surrounding CRT projectors tasked with casting the electronic images of the flame simultaneously onto the wall in a wide spectrum of colors.

In the artist's words, it's a way to "electronically amplify" the natural light coming from the flame.

Meanwhile, "Three Elements" represents Paik's endeavor to employ lasers to give shape to the notion of "cheonjiin," or the philosophy that defines heaven, the earth and humanity in traditional Korean culture, through the three geometric forms of a circle, square and triangle.

"Although confined in three enclosed boxes, through mirrors and prisms installed within, the colorful laser beams become refracted and dispersed repetitively ― imbuing the limited space with a sense of infinite depth and change," the curator said.

"Super Baroque" runs through Jan. 24, 2023 at the NJP Art Center.

An installation view of the exhibition, "Nam June Paik, Super Baroque," shows "Three Elements: Circle, Square, Triangle" (1999), left, and "Video Chandelier No. 1" (1989) on view at the Nam June Paik Art Center. Courtesy of NJP Art Center