“I use technology in order to hate it properly,” pioneering video artist and self-identified cultural terrorist Nam June Paik says while explaining his playful, boundary-breaking work. A Ph.D. holder who speaks 20 languages––almost all quite badly––Paik is known as the father of video art, fantasizing early on about converting the medium of television into something other than passive work. It often broke the rules, incorporating onstage nudity, politics (including the satirization of John F. Kennedy shortly after his assassination), and the embrace of the future. For Paik, a student who lived history––he escaped Seoul at the beginning of the Korean War to study music in West Germany in the late 1950s––it’s the artist’s role to think about the future.
Lovingly constructed by Amanda Kim, Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV is a seminal biography of an artist often dangling on the edge...
Lovingly constructed by Amanda Kim, Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV is a seminal biography of an artist often dangling on the edge...
- 2/8/2023
- by John Fink
- The Film Stage
I remember the first time I became conscious of Nam June Paik’s existence. I was still a high school student, starting to figure out my interest in art history. My teacher had assigned us to particular sculptures in the Samsung Leeum Museum to write about. Then there I was, at the tender age of sixteen, face-to-face with “My Faust-Communication, 1989-1991” – a Gothic portal enshrining a gridded stack of videos. Little did I know that this encounter would mark the first of many to come.
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance’s US Documentary Competition. Its distribution is now handled by Dogwoof and Greenwich Entertainment, and the film will begin its US theatrical release on 24 March 2023.
It seemed like I found him in every art-related corner of my world. I ran into him in other exhibitions at...
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance’s US Documentary Competition. Its distribution is now handled by Dogwoof and Greenwich Entertainment, and the film will begin its US theatrical release on 24 March 2023.
It seemed like I found him in every art-related corner of my world. I ran into him in other exhibitions at...
- 2/2/2023
- by Grace Han
- AsianMoviePulse
Every so often, you’ll see a portrait-of-the-artist documentary that’s so beautifully made, about a figure of such unique fascination, whose art is so perfectly showcased by the documentary format, that when it’s over you can’t believe the film hadn’t existed until now. It feels, in its way, essential. “Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV” is like that. Directed by Amanda Kim, it’s a tantalizing portrait of Nam June Paik, the revolutionary Korean-born video artist who, in the late ’60s and ’70s, did nothing less than invent an art form.
When he was first becoming famous, about 50 years ago, you’d go to see a Nam June Paik installation at someplace like the Museum of Modern Art, and it would seem quirky and exotic — a tower of stacked TV screens, all flashing what looked like the squiggly visual equivalent of feedback. It was weird and kind of gripping,...
When he was first becoming famous, about 50 years ago, you’d go to see a Nam June Paik installation at someplace like the Museum of Modern Art, and it would seem quirky and exotic — a tower of stacked TV screens, all flashing what looked like the squiggly visual equivalent of feedback. It was weird and kind of gripping,...
- 1/26/2023
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
The documentary Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV, which explores the groundbreaking video artist’s life and work, is like nothing Paik ever would have made himself. It’s far too straightforward and chronological, far too concerned with presenting things in a clear and comprehensive fashion — whereas Paik spent most of his career seriously messing things up, whether he was doing it with musical instruments, television sets or live TV broadcasts distorted through time and space.
But that doesn’t mean director Amanda Kim’s first feature isn’t worth a look. For anyone interested in the origins of what we now call video art, not to mention mass media and the internet, it’s essential viewing. Paik was a true visionary who foresaw the virtual world we now live in, and Kim’s film chronicles how he channeled that vision through madcap sculptures and installations that took...
But that doesn’t mean director Amanda Kim’s first feature isn’t worth a look. For anyone interested in the origins of what we now call video art, not to mention mass media and the internet, it’s essential viewing. Paik was a true visionary who foresaw the virtual world we now live in, and Kim’s film chronicles how he channeled that vision through madcap sculptures and installations that took...
- 1/26/2023
- by Jordan Mintzer
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Dogwoof has picked up Amanda Kim’s documentary on the contemporary artist Nam June Paik for world sales, excluding North America and South Korea.
“Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV” is set to world premiere on Jan. 22 at Sundance as part of the U.S. Documentary Competition.
Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and invented the video synthesizer. He is credited with coining the term “electronic super highway,” which was the title of one of his most famous works that involved more than 300 TV sets.
The film will trace Paik’s life from childhood as he traveled across the world. He fled to Japan from his native Korea at the outbreak of the Korean War, before moving to Germany and subsequently to New York City where he settled in 1964.
The film will include...
“Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV” is set to world premiere on Jan. 22 at Sundance as part of the U.S. Documentary Competition.
Paik, one of the most famous Asian artists of the 20th century, revolutionized the use of technology as an artistic canvas and invented the video synthesizer. He is credited with coining the term “electronic super highway,” which was the title of one of his most famous works that involved more than 300 TV sets.
The film will trace Paik’s life from childhood as he traveled across the world. He fled to Japan from his native Korea at the outbreak of the Korean War, before moving to Germany and subsequently to New York City where he settled in 1964.
The film will include...
- 1/9/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Maverick artist Nam June Paik will be the subject of a new feature-length documentary that will highlight unseen footage and archival materials. The currently untitled production will be completed in 2022. Oscar nominee and “Minari” star Steven Yeun and hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy have joined the project as executive producers.
Paik is often referred to as the “Father of Video Art” and was a prophet of the internet, as well as a visionary and futurist. Adopting technology to transform the way we see the world, he was one of the first to use television as an artist’s canvas and invented the video synthesizer. In the 1970s, he coined the term “Electronic Superhighway” and predicted the future of communication in the digital age. He launched a series of the world’s first global satellite art events, bridging the gap between East and West, pop and avant-garde and all genres of art...
Paik is often referred to as the “Father of Video Art” and was a prophet of the internet, as well as a visionary and futurist. Adopting technology to transform the way we see the world, he was one of the first to use television as an artist’s canvas and invented the video synthesizer. In the 1970s, he coined the term “Electronic Superhighway” and predicted the future of communication in the digital age. He launched a series of the world’s first global satellite art events, bridging the gap between East and West, pop and avant-garde and all genres of art...
- 12/15/2021
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
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