Born in Seoul, Korea, in 1932, Nam June Paik studied music and art history at the University of Tokyo, and graduated in 1956 with a degree in aesthetics and the completion of a dissertation on the atonal music of Arnold Schoenberg. Paik's studies continued in Germany at the Universities of Munich and Cologne, and the Conservatory of Music in Freiburg. From 1958 to 1963 Paik worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen at the WDR Studio for Electric Music in Cologne. During this period he had contact with John Cage (see Acc. no. 1997.197), a turning point for both their careers and began his association with the Fluxus movement, meeting George Maciunas and performing in numerous Fluxus events across Europe. He moved to New York in 1964 and began actively pursuing the idea that video could be expressed as an art form. During the late 1960s and 1970, Paik formed an important collaborative partnership with cellist Charlotte Moorman (1933-91). He played a pioneering role in the development of video, new media and multimedia art making radically developing and altering the understanding and perception of these media as art. His interest and attitude is characterized by his eclectic combination of material which extends to include sound, found objects, text and the moving image. Paik died at his home in Miami Beach in 2006.
The elements belongs to a group of works that incorporate the cabinet. The cabinet series sees Paik combine objects and images that mix differing histories and cultures within the dynamism of contemporary global communication networks. In The elements, six television sets are inserted into a red 'oriental' lacquer cabinet. Inscribed in gold paint on the front of the cabinet are a set of Chinese calligraphic characters translating to 'a state of ecstasy that is achieved though a meditation'. The six video sets feature American actor Humphrey Bogart and German artist Joseph Beuys (who had performed with Paik and is a recurring figure in many of Paik's video works). Also featured are Charlotte Moorman, who worked with Paik on many other projects that include Fluxus performance works, and American film and stage actress Lauren Bacall. Landmarks that appear include the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysee, the Empire State building and New York's skyline. The video loop is a typical, fast-cut string of images that incorporates a set of computer-generated images of butterflies, pyramids, stars, flowers, birds and spheres, spliced with video images of planes, cars, a burning hat, a monkey, a toucan and a snail. On top of the cabinet are three glass beakers inscribed with the Chinese characters that translate as 'horse or sheep', 'silver' and 'leaf', which can be read as more metaphoric representations for the elements 'animal', 'earth' and 'nature'. In each of these beakers is a silk flower, and attached to the bottom of the cabinet are three sets of roots.
As an assemblage, the cabinet has a multitude of interpretive possibilities. Combining textual and cultural material that includes elements of appropriation and self reference, The elements is a richly layered work that sifts through Paik's transcultural artistic baggage. This includes how a term such as 'elements' impacts when considered as either a Chinese, or Greek mythological source and implicitly draws on both these sets of meanings. Additionally, by suggesting a state such as 'ecstasy' in a work that incorporates serial, fast paced video images, the kinds of relationships this work alludes to is an array of late twentieth century phenomena that range from pop cultural artifact and psychedelia, through to rarefied states of meditative reflection.
