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Image / Something Pacific: interactive bank of tv monitors inside Media Center, UCSD

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Title
Something Pacific: interactive bank of tv monitors inside Media Center, UCSD
Creator
Stuart Collection (San Diego, Calif.)
Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)
Paik, Nam June (South Korean sculptor, video artist, and performance artist, 1932-2006)
Contributor
Beebe, Mary Livingstone (American, born 1940)
Date Created and/or Issued
1986
Contributing Institution
UC San Diego, The UC San Diego Library
Collection
Stuart Collection Photographs
Rights Information
Under copyright
Constraint(s) on Use: This work is protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). Use of this work beyond that allowed by "fair use" requires written permission of the UC Regents. Responsibility for obtaining permissions and any use and distribution of this work rests exclusively with the user and not the UC San Diego Library. Inquiries can be made to the UC San Diego Library program having custody of the work.
Use: This work is available from the UC San Diego Library. This digital copy of the work is intended to support research, teaching, and private study.
Rights Holder and Contact
Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)
Description
Sculpture and Installations
Film, Audio, Video and Digital Art
Science, Technology and Industry
Paik's Something Pacific for the Stuart Collection was his first permanent outdoor installation. This work relates specifically to its site, which includes the lobby of the university's Media Center as well as the lawns surrounding the building. Outdoors, the work features several ruined televisions embedded in the landscape; some are paired with Buddhas, and one, a tiny Sony Watchman, is topped by a miniature reproduction of Rodin's Thinker. In striking contrast to this video graveyard, the lobby of the Media Center houses one of Paik's lively interactive banks of TV monitors. By means of a control panel, viewers are able to manipulate sequences of Paik's own tapes and broadcast MTV. "These live TVs are wired through MTV which used to be more interesting than it is now. Half of them are also wired through a Fairlight synthesizer so that the images can be manipulated by anyone. It was important to Nam June that this part of the installation be interactive and we are trying to figure out how to continue that aspect when this very old (1985) synthesizer finally fails. The TV sets were replaced in 2004 with new ones donated by Samsung." - Mary Beebe, Stuart Collection Director
UC San Diego Library, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0175 (https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/contact)
Media Center: University of California, San Diego; La Jolla, California, United States
Type
image
Format
Television monitors; video recordings
Form/Genre
environmental art
site-specific works
public sculpture
television receivers
public art
Conceptual
Identifier
ark:/20775/bb5462378p
Language
No linguistic content
Subject
Meditation
Korean
Ruins
Copies (derivative objects)
Nature
Religions (concept)
Buddhism
Landscapes (environments)
Humor
Contemporary
Deterioration
Viewers (observers)
Mass media
Product obsolescence
Graveyards
Space (composition concept)
Technology
Rubbish
University of California, San Diego--History
Environmental art
Site-specific works
Public sculpture
Television receivers
Public art
Conceptual
Pacific Ocean
Place
Pacific Ocean

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