Hi Eleanor, Heather,
Thanks for your informative responses. The stack of vinyl records called
Random Access: Record Shishkebab is a different piece than the
audiotape-based Random Access I was referring to, and perhaps that's the
work you were all referring to all along (I regret not yet having seen the
show). The Shishkebab already looked pretty rickety in period photos, so I'm
glad to hear it survived the extraction from whatever storehouse you found
it in.
And I'm glad to hear that Eleanor's conversation with students broached
preservation strategies beyond storage. In the case of Zen for Film
especially, I second Heather's surprise and wonder whether convenience
rather than fidelity was the motivating factor for such curatorial
decisions.
Eleanor is exactly right in saying that despite Paik's motto of "maximum
decontrol," he did make artistic choices. Eleanor gives the example of
Paik's preference not to display flat screens in their "naked" state for the
installation TV Garden when CRTs become obsolete. This decision originally
emerged from Paik's 2000 variable media interview with John Hanhardt (at the
link below). Indeed, recording choices like this is exactly the reason we
created the Variable Media Questionnaire in the first place.
http://variablemediaquestionnaire.net/app/#a=16
That said, I think folks like me with training in traditional plastic arts
must be careful not to import our presumptions about what constitutes
fidelity into other artistic domains, including media art. Eleanor asks
"whether there are those who would place value on the physical object as an
'original', or whether the majority feel that the value of the artwork would
be solely in the concept." Are those the only two options?
Paik was trained as a composer, and the 1963 exhibition in which both
versions of Random Access first appeared was entitled "Exposition of Music."
So when Kurt Masur conducts the Eroica symphony for the London Philharmonic,
does that mean Masur thinks Beethoven is "conceptual" because he's chosen to
focus on the sound instead of displaying period instruments in a vitrine? If
I join a contradance group that swings their sweaty bodies around each other
for an hour every Thursday, is that a more "conceptual" experience than if
we visited 17th-century ballroom costumes at the Metropolitan's costume
wing? Do we no longer need to re-perform any LeWitt wall drawings because
they "can be reduced to instructions of how to make them"?
To be sure, participating in Random Access is the reverse of contradancing:
instead of moving your body in response to sound, you're making sound in
response to moving your body. But I don't see how it's "conceptual" for me
to prioritize actual bodily participation over the abstract knowledge that I
am looking at the "original" copper wires or linen gussets. Someone help me
here!
I hear what Heather is saying, that Paik's death gives the objects he
touched a certain aura. Sure, I get that. I love the hall of antique musical
instruments at the Metropolitan Museum--though I'd much rather see them
disappear than never again hear the music originally performed on them.
Thousands line up to see Saint Francis's tunic enshrined in the massive
cathedral of Assisi, but that doesn't mean fetishizing a relic is the best
way to keep Francis's legacy alive.
As the decades march on and those of us who knew Paik first-hand start
pushing up daisies, the way curators display his pieces will be the primary
way people understand his vitality. Personally I'm hoping he's remembered
less as the guy who preferred Quasars to Trinitrons than as the guy who
dropped his pants (intentionally or not) while shaking hands with the
President of the United States.
Cheers,
jon
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