Nam June Paik: Father of Digital Art, Prophet of Social Media
My very first memory in life is from 1982: arriving in a rush by cab at the Whitney Museum, emerging from the elevator into a black void filled with hundreds of interconnected video screens — a marvel of hypnotic fusion. It was Nam June Paik’s Megatron/Matrix installation, and even though I was only 3 years old it was a revelation, the dreamscape of a child’s imagination brought into real life.
Though Nam June was my great uncle, as a kid I wasn’t aware of his legacy as the original disrupter, the first artist to use technology as a medium. Today, as the creative director of his estate, I can only think of him as a true visionary, an agitator/artist who expressed through his work a singular perspective on the future of art, technology and humanity. He coined the phrase ‘electronic superhighway’ in 1974. He effectively predicted the internet and social media in 1973. With the explosion of digital art and NFTs I believe the artist who saw boundless opportunity for creativity and connection through technology belongs at the center of the conversation. Nam June’s time has come.
To properly honor Nam June we at the estate have minted the opening of his seminal, hallucinatory video collage Global Groove (1973) as an NFT. In the opening, he states: “this is a glimpse of the video landscape of tomorrow, when you will be able to switch to any TV station on the earth, and TV Guide will be as fat as the Manhattan telephone book.” This is YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram prophesized: everyone sharing their ideas, creativity, stories. Nam June believed that technological connection could make the world a better place, and even make everyone an artist. Maybe someday it will.
Despite all the technological evolutions since he began, Nam June’s work has stood the test of time. However, in managing his estate we know first hand how temporal technology can be — the maintenance necessary for his installations of hundreds of now obsolete cathode-ray tube screens has limited the ways in which his work can be exhibited and sold. Given that, each technical decision in the minting process was critical. We partnered with Aito to ensure the utmost sophistication in the contract. We minted the token in Nam June’s name so it’s not attached to any platform. The goal in making the Global Groove (Opening) NFT and all future Nam June NFTs is for his work to never again be vulnerable to technological change — for his work to live forever.
Whether they know it or not, all digital artists are influenced by Nam June Paik. We see the minting of Global Groove (Opening) as only the first of our efforts on his behalf in NFTs. But beyond individual NFTs, we see the Metaverse as the ultimate destination for Nam June’s creativity and ideas, and there the potential is extraordinary. Imagine being able to walk into Global Groove or Megatron/Matrix. Imagine being able to step into Nam June’s dreamscape like I did when I was a child, from anywhere on earth. Nam June’s future has arrived. This is just the beginning.
Christie’s Global Groove (Opening) Lot Page
Christie’s Global Groove (Opening) Lot Essay / Video
