There’s hardly a museum of contemporary art that doesn’t have a room with an old, illuminated CRT television. The installations have titles like Zen for TV (1963) or Video Fish (1975) and are in every case by Nam June Paik, a founder of so-called media art. The medium of television, especially antique CRT televisions, may seem like anything but contemporary these days. But Paik’s reflections on the dependence of continuous entertainment and the flood of information and his research on self-determined, mindful alternatives can easily refer to today’s discourse on the addiction potential of social media and chatbots.

A perspective like this could focus not only on the similarities but also on the differences between the media and art landscapes of the 1960s and the 2020s. Instead, NAM JUNE PAIK – MOON IS THE OLDEST TV contents itself with the thesis that the artist anticipated the internet with his idea of a telecommunications-based “electronic superhighway”—thus following all the conventions of the art documentary genre, namely, painting a picture of a visionary artistic genius through hagiographic testimonies from his companions. Within these conventions MOON IS THE OLDEST TV is absolutely first-rate, it shows Paik’s beginning and influences, his likable, original personality and his clumsy path towards international recognition. But in order to get a realistic image of the history of media art and its interventions in ever-new technical standards, many more such films would have to get made.

Yorick Berta

Translation: Elinor Lewy