Transmitted Live: Nam June Paik Resounds

For Edinburgh International Festival 2013 Talbot Rice Gallery is proud to present the first exhibition in Scotland of legendary Korean artist Nam June Paik (1932 – 2006). No other artist has had greater influence on the use of technology in art than Paik; a genuine pioneer and true visionary, he anticipated through his art and writing so much of what we now understand to be the nature of life in the 21st Century, from multi-channel television and satellite broadcasts to the current trend towards film and video within Fine Art practice. Born in Korea in 1932, Nam June Paik became one of the most important and influential artists of the 20th Century. Artist, musician, inventor, innovator, writer, teacher and prolific collaborator, Paik’s impact and legacy continues to resonate with contemporary artists against a wider cultural and technological context.

'Transmitted Live: Nam June Paik Resounds' celebrates the 50th anniversary of Paik’s first solo exhibition, 'Exposition of Music - Electronic Television' (Wuppertal 1963), when the artist brought television into the realm of art for the first time, presenting it as a tactile and multisensory medium. As part of the counter-cultural movements of the 1960s, Paik believed that artists should humanise technology, get their ‘fingers in and tear away the walls’ of the establishment. Paik, a trained musician, treated technology as a material part of his repertoire, which later expanded to include video, satellite transmissions, robots and lasers.

Drawn primarily from the Nam June Paik Art Center’s collections, 'Transmitted Live: Nam June Paik Resounds' demonstrates how revolutionary the artist remains for contemporary audiences in encouraging creative engagement with technology. Building on Edinburgh’s philosophical heritage, 'Transmitted Live' embodies a critical engagement with the physical world and Paik’s fluid, kinetic intelligence. The first Nam June Paik exhibition in Scotland, birthplace of electromagnetic theory and television technology, will resound throughout the city and beyond.

Supported by GyeongGi Cultural Foundation, Global Inspiration GyeongGi-Do, Korea Foundation, The University of Edinburgh, Creative Scotland and The Henry Moore Foundation.