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Gregory Zinman
Etude 1, a piece by Nam June PaikProfessor Gregory Zinman was quoted in an article in Smithsonian Magazine on the confluence of art and engineering, particilarly in the context of "Watch This! Revelations in Media Art," an exhibition that opens on April 24.
The exhibition features artifacts from the Nam June Paik archive aquired in 2009. Paik is a Korean-born composer, performance artist, painter, pianist, writer, and the acknowledged grandfather of video art. In the 1960s, Bell Lab's senior management briefly opened the labs to a few artists, including Paik, inviting them to use the computer facilities.
"The engineers turned to artists to see if the artists would understand the technology in new ways that the engineers could learn from,” Zinman explained. “To me, that moment, that confluence of art and engineering, was the genesis of the contemporary media-scape.”
On Paik utilizing words and letters fromt eh English alphabet to compose visual works of art:
“I think it has to do with opposites, Paik’s play on words,” Zinman adds. “My guess is that he found that amusing. It also could be that short terms could be plotted more easily.”
On Paik's frustration with technology found in the labs:
"He was frustrated because it was just too slow and not intuitive enough,” Zinman says. “Paik moved very fast. He once said his fingers worked faster than any computer. He thought the computer would revolutionize media—and he was right—but he didn’t like it.”
Gregory Zinman is an assistant professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. His research interests include experimental film and media, artists’ film and video, digital aesthetics, the moving image online, and early computer films.
