Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Nam June Paik

This week I was in Seoul visiting my favorite retail space Ssamzie Building which is a unique mix of upscale Korean craft, everyman food, and cutting-edge contemporary art. There's no other place like it in the world. Artisans without business skills can setup shop there at Ssamzie and get their creative businesses incubated.

Purely by coincidence, I was there on the 1st year anniversary of Nam June Paik's passing. Paik was, and continues to be, a core influence on any practitioner of dynamic media. My favorite work of Paik's is Random Access Music which is a series of technology art pieces. Imagine a wall with magnetic audio tape glued to it, and holding the playback head in your hand like a wand such that you can freely brush over the loops of tape and hear things. These pieces represent a wonderful destruction of conventional passive media, into completely different constructions that are interactive, analog, and ultimately human. Thanks Nam June.