Nam June Paik and The Residents

I'm glad we talked about Nam June Paik the other day because I have often heard his name as influential in art, but never knew exactly what his influence was. Turns out he was one of the main pioneers of video art and electronic music. I found it interesting that he was classically trained in music, yet opted for a more non traditionalist approach to creating more abstract, atonal electronic music using synthesizers. My favorite piece of his was where he was dragging a violin along the ground by a string. It ties in perfectly with the decontextualization we have been talking about as well as the examples of performance art we have examined. It's saying, "Here I am, playing the violin. Why do I have to play it the expected way with a bow? This is creating a sound just in a different way." Like any great art, it forces people to think of things in a different way.
I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know who the Residents were until this class because they seem to have been such pioneers in the realm of music videos. Coming from a generation who has grown up watching music videos, it seems important to be exposed to this group. Like the Gorillas who we watched last week, they concealed their identities from the public by using animation and costumes/masks to hide their faces. Even in public they wore the eyeball masks and top hats. It seems they are performance artists as well as avant garde experimental musicians. There music videos were definitely trippy and disturbing but it's interesting to finally be exposed to truly the first music videos.