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In Paik's Virtual Archive, Hanna B. Hölling contemplates the identity of multimedia artworks by reconsidering the role of conservation in our understanding of what the artwork is and how it functions within and beyond a specific historical moment. In Hölling's discussion of works by Nam June Paik (1932-2006), the hugely influential Korean American artist who is considered the progenitor of video art, she explores the relation between the artworks' concept and material, theories of musical performance and performativity, and the Bergsonian concept of duration, as well as the parts these elements play in the conceptualization of multimedia artworks. Hölling combines her astute assessment of artistic technologies with ideas from art theory, philosophy, and aesthetics to probe questions related to materials and materiality, not just in Paik's work but in contemporary art in general. Ultimately, she proposes that the archive-the physical and virtual realm that encompasses all that is known about an artwork-is the foundation for the identity and continuity of every work of art.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Revisiting the Object
PART I. CONCEPT AND MATERIALITY
1. Two Works
2. Conceptual and Material Aspects of Media Art
3. Musical Roots of Performed and Performative Media
PART 2. TIME AND CHANGEABILITY
4. Zen for Film
5. Changeability and Multimedia Art
6. Time and Conservation
7. Heterotemporalities: Film Time, Video Time, and Paik Time
PART 3. ARCHIVE AND IDENTITY
8. The Material and the Immaterial Archive
9. Archival Implications
Conclusion: The Many Archai of Conservation and Curation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Hanna B. Hölling teaches material culture, cultures of conservation, and postwar art history at the Department of History of Art, University College London. She was previously Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Professor, Cultures of Conservation, at the Bard Graduate Center in New York. Her research has been supported by Terra Foundation for American Art, Getty Foundation Residential Grant, Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Dutch Research Council. Among her publications are Revisions—Zen for Film, and co-edited volume The Explicit Material: Inquiries on the Intersection of Curatorial and Conservation Cultures.
Summary
Using examples of works by Nam June Paik (1932-2006), the hugely influential Korean American artist who is considered the progenitor of video art, he author explores the relation between the artworks' concept and material, theories of musical performance and performativity, and the Bergsonian concept of duration.
Additional text
"The author does not only offer an analysis of the installations in the traditional context of conservation of works of art, that is to say in the conditions of observation, measurement and analysis. Rather, it seeks to understand their conception in a regime of cultural, scientific and dynamic relationships. The book takes its originality from the museographic approach, which is broken down into three parts: the first, "Concept and Materiality", where artistic and performative media are mentioned; the second, “Time and Changeability”, which deals with questions of time and conservation; and the third, "Archive and Identity", where the concepts of the material and immaterial archive are advanced, with archival and museographic implications."
Report
It is wonderful to see a new generation of media and art historians offering a fresh view on this global artist. Hölling is one of the leading scholars helping us to understand Nam June Paik's work in the digital age."-Wulf Herzogenrath, art historian and curator
