ABSTRACT

TIME
Nam June Paik
Paul Schimmel

Nam Jun* Paik, CharlofN Moorman T.V. BRA, 1974 .

PAUL SCHIMME'L: Could you tell me about your relation

with Charlotte Moorman? You did make TV bra (1969), TV
cello (1971), and TV bed (1972) for her .
NAM JUNE PAIK: I consider her to be a great video artist.
Video art is not just a TV screen and tape-it is a whole life, a
new way of life. The TV screen on her body is literally the
embodyment of live video art .
PS : She becomes video .
NJP : TV bra and TV cello are interesting because Charlotte
did it. If any other lady cellist did it, it would have been just
a gimmick . Charlotte's reknowned breast symbolizes the agony
and achievement of the avant-garde for the past ten years.
When given a choice between truth and convenience, people
always choose convenience . Both artists and distributors are
concentrating on videotape-making, which is more convenient,
whereas my live video art with Charlotte is expensive, clumsy,
and, as an art object, almost unsaleable-like a piece of truth .
It is about time that we make the distinction between video
art and videotaped art .
PS : How would you relate your train bra (1973) with your
TV bra?
NJP : The pair of two bras shows us the way to solve the
energy crisis and our current inflation-depression . I wish
Charlotte had been invited by President Ford to attend the
economic summit meeting at the White House. Transportation
and communication are generally considered as two separate
issues ; however, we should ask why people travel . People
travel to communicate something, either for pleasure or profit.
In the case of pleasure driving, they are subconsciously communicating with themselves via machine, since few have the
courage to scrutinize their inner selves . Tireless indulgence
into video-feedbacks by some video artists have
the same
motives . The frequency of travel will reduce if
the
need to
travel is reduced. What we need is a
substitute
technology
to
travel . Here the role of video artists as the
pioneer-experimenters in t ele-communication-transportatio
n trade-offs is great.
Charlotte Moorman showed us this
impending
conversion in
the most elegant way, by adorning herself
with
TV bra and
train bra.
52

PS : Within the content of your video pieces, there seems to

be an interface between ritual-classical tradition and the modem
popular culture. Why is this?
NJP : I like John Cage because he took seriousness out of
serious art. There is no difference between ritual, classical, high
art and low, mass entertainment, and art. I live-whatever I
like, I take.
PS : You come to video from music, whereas many video
artists came from painting-sculpture . What is the difference?
NJP : I think I understand time better than the video artists
who came from painting-sculpture . Music is the manipulation
of time. All music forms have different structures and buildup .
As painters understand abstract space, I understand abstract
time.
PS: Do you think your video will ever have mass appeal?
NJP : I couldn't care less about it. I enjoy my video. If
people like it, that is their problem . This is why I sleep every
Monday until 1 :00 pm to show the world that I am independent.
I am lazy. I tell everybody not to call me on Monday.
PS : That way you don't have to wear double-knits and go to
work. Did you ever have a steady job?
NJP : No, not really . I just did what I thought I should be
doing .
PS : And you still do that?
NJP : A bum doesn't do anything he doesn't like. I do the
same thing .
PS : Do you think video as an art object will ever turn into
the public mass media mainstream, or will it remain on the
fringe of society?
NJP : The demarcation line between high art and mass art is
often fuzzy, e.g., Buster Keaton and Humphrey Bogart were
not considered high art in the 1930s and 1940s, but now many
highbrows consider them to be important artists . On the other
hand, quite a few high art pieces, including some Picassos,
are now clich6s .
In February, 1966, I made a videotape distortion of Charlotte Moorman on the Johnny Carson Show. Nine year's time
turned this quasi-popular art into a chic, ambiguous high art.
However, the real confrontation and confusion of high and

ju- ... . cat..e ..t

reuruary, iaot, when notn c:narlotte anu i

were arrested for indecent exposure for the so-called topless
cello performance at Cinematheque . After having spent a night
in jail, the judge asked my profession. I said, "Composer ." He
dismi:=ed me since there was no mention of a composer in the
N.Y. State Penal Code 4911B, since nobody could have foreseen
that a composer could be arrested for indecent exposure. The
ncxt morning two investigators from the Immigration Service
came to my loft and were flabbergasted by my 23 TV sets (9
were color) . They assumed that I was making a living as a
TV repairman, which was illegal for me since I was on a nonworking visa at that time. It was not easy to explain to them
that 23 old TV sets make high art. One of them asked why I
had so many books. I just said, "I like reading ." Then the
phone rang-a "real" topless bar in San Francisco offered
Charlotte $5000 for one week's performance . Another call was
from Andy Warhol, who offered Charlotte another week at
his Dom Cabaret . While I was still worried about expulsion
from the U.S., I was asked, "How did you manage to get
arrested?" The final argument was from Russell Baker of the
New York Times : "For all we know, Casals might have been
greater had he not been forced to keep a layer of wool between
his knee and his cello ."
PS : What about the whole aesthetics of boredom?
NJP : In 1967 I wrote a short histography about the aesthetics
of boredom . Being an aristocrat means being bored . Boredom
and artistocracy have been correlative since medieval times in
the West and East. Acquisitiveness in money means buying a
SoHo loft and saving money. Acquisitiveness in time means
loving only exciting stuff, a desire to be entertained every
second . If you give up acquisitiveness in money, you should
not own anything. If you give up acquisitiveness in time, you
should be bored and enjoy boredom .
PS : What do you think of your position as the George Washington of Video?
NJP : Yes, I think that history shows this, so the problem is
what to do with it. Historical classification is often vulgar.
PS: What prompted you to begin your work with video?
NJP : I sold everything I had, and bought 13 TV sets in 1962.
PS: What prompted you to do this?

NJP : It was a slow process . I was working with electronic

music at Radio Station of Cologne every day, which also transmits TV. It was natural for me to think that something similar
to electronic music could also be done on the TV screen . I
wrote to John Cage in 1959 that I would use a TV set in a
multi-media concert . At that time John Whitney was experimenting with computer film and the German painter K.O.
Goetz was talking about computer-programmed painting . From
all those, the idea of TV crept in, though for a long time I
thought it was a task for painters . I waited and waited but
nobody did it. One late morning, the idea suddenly flashed,
"Why not me?" I learned from Arnold Schoenberg to dig up
the root and shake up the tree from the root on. Therefore I
bought physics and electronics textbooks and started from
the root.
PS : When you are video-synthesizing a piece do you feel
you have complete control?
,
NJP : No, I don't like to have complete control . That would
be boring . What I learned from John Cage is to enjoy every
second by de-control. Surprises and disappointments are built
in the machine .
PS : There is a lot of talk that the written word is going to
die out. Do you agree?
NJP : No, because the written word is very efficient due to

Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Concerto for TV Cello i Videotapes,

1973/74 .

Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman,

1973/74.

Concerto for TV cello i Videotapes,

its random-access-ability . You can skip and jump any part

of a book. There is complete freedom, whereas in television you
are the prisoner of time .
PS: Do you think some day you will be able to dial a computer and see any TV show at any time you want?
NJP : Yes, I bet that will come. I am very serious about
following the development of electronics because history has
shown that we are very hardware-dependent . I hate hardware,
I hate the video-synthesizer, but it is interesting . I much prefer
to sip a drink at SoHo bars but I watch the development of
hardware carefully ; even if I cannot change the course of
history, at least I want to know, when I die, in what way the
world ends. Whether we die from TV x-ray, a car accident,
or nuclear war, we all die from hardware. Our problem is not
Capitalism versus Socialism, but the conflict of human time
versus machine time. When I was asked to submit a text to
the Machine Show Catalogue (MOMA, 1969), I sent the
following :
"From Marx to Spengler-, from Tolstoy to Tockeville, not a
single prophet of the recent past predicted the greatest
problem of today . . . parking ."
I think the world will justify me so that I justify the world.
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