Analogue Assemblage is a short visual remix of images taken from some of
Paik's earliest experiments at television stations WGBH, Boston (circa 1969)
and WNET, New York (circa 1972). A woman's face becomes a mirror and then a
portal to hypnotic abstraction and occasional flickers of media images of the
day. The soundtrack is lifted from Paik's legendary 9/23/69 Experiment with
David Atwood, an 80 minute multi-camera video action at WGBH that included
live video switching and processing through the Paik-AbČ Synthesizer, along
with live and pre-recorded music. 9/23/69 was never actually broadcast, but
the images of Olivia Tappan's face flexing and morphing, and the layered
candles for Jewish New Year, became source material for many of Paik's
classic works, including this one. Analogue Assemblage offers a reminder of
the depth of texture and color produced by now antiquated systems of analogue
technologies. There is a vibrant quality to the image processing that is only
approximated with modern digital machines. Paik has often spoken of how he
built his video synthesizer so that he could play images with his hands as he
had previously played the piano. In Paik's edits and processing, there is
always a musical flow. A feeling of crafted but also liberated improvisation.
The tape was first commissioned for Media-City Seoul, as part of a series of
artists' tapes presented on an outdoor video wall.
– Stephen Vitiello
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Edited by Seth Price and Stephen Vitiello
Nam June Paik ° 1932 Seoul, South Korea.
Lives and works in New York, USA
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