cated setup of disc players, computers, and digital sequences. “It’s grand scale and technological prowess,” says NMAA chief curator Jaquelyn Serrver, “demonstrate Paik’s extraordinary capacity to move video from the sphere of the ordinary to the limitless domain of the imagination. He has transformed television into a form of artistic expression particularly suited to our times.” Paik’s last public performance in 1997 at the Anthology Film Archive in New York City was his piece Coyote 3. The performance starts with Paik seated at a piano with singer, Dina Emerson, and dancer, Simone Forti, standing beside him. Emerson steps up to the microphone and begins to imitate the sound of alarms and sirens, while a video projection of Beuys growling and speaking is played. Paik accompanies the video on the piano, playing broken melodies, sometimes singing along. These fragments of music are as diverse as Paik’s influences. All the while Simone Forti is dancing and singing. At the end Paik turns the piano over until it breaks apart. The lights go out and a laser beam flashed across the stage while the three performers smoke cigarettes. “There is a lot happening on stage and yet very little, normal motions take on other significance, time has become fleeting and geologic. The irrational is given as much importance as the rational,” says Jonathan Huffman, “Paik continues to push for new territories, continuing to redefine situations and new technologies.” Paik has made the world of television and video art his own. His broad array of work encompasses several disciplines from composing to satellite art. Paik’s varied interests have helped make his art the first of its kind. Paik said of his work, “My experimental TV is not always interesting, but not always uninteresting, like nature, which is beautiful, not because it changes beautifully, but because ...
