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Television Art's Abstract Starts: Europe circa 1944–1969 **

Television Art's Abstract Starts: Europe circa 1944–1969 ** Television Art’s Abstract Starts: Europe circa 1944–1969* CHRISTINE MEHRING Unlike all previous communications technologies, radio and television were systems pr imar ily devised for transmission and reception as abstract processes, with little or no definition of preceding content. When the question of content was raised, it was resolved, in the main, parasitically. . . . It is not only that the supply of broadcasting facilities preceded the demand; it is that the means of communication preceded their content. —Raymond Williams, Television (1974) Video and television art, so the story goes, started with Nam June Paik. That he first turned to television in Wuppertal, West Germany, before moving to New York has remained at best a peculiar side note to discussions of the relationship between art and television, which, at least on this side of the Atlantic, appear largely dominated by art made in the U.S. What is more, even at the presumed moment of its origin, Paik himself deflected the honor of being the first television artist. In a text published on the occasion of his 1963 exhibition Exposition of Music—Electronic Television at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Paik opens with a credit that today most art historians would http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png October MIT Press

Television Art's Abstract Starts: Europe circa 1944–1969 **

Mehring, Christine
October , Volume Summer 2008 (125) – Jul 1, 2008
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References (2)

Publisher
MIT Press
Copyright
© 2008 October Magazine, Ltd. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ISSN
0162-2870
eISSN
1536-013X
DOI
10.1162/octo.2008.125.1.29
Publisher site
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Abstract

Television Art’s Abstract Starts: Europe circa 1944–1969* CHRISTINE MEHRING Unlike all previous communications technologies, radio and television were systems pr imar ily devised for transmission and reception as abstract processes, with little or no definition of preceding content. When the question of content was raised, it was resolved, in the main, parasitically. . . . It is not only that the supply of broadcasting facilities preceded the demand; it is that the means of communication preceded their content. —Raymond Williams, Television (1974) Video and television art, so the story goes, started with Nam June Paik. That he first turned to television in Wuppertal, West Germany, before moving to New York has remained at best a peculiar side note to discussions of the relationship between art and television, which, at least on this side of the Atlantic, appear largely dominated by art made in the U.S. What is more, even at the presumed moment of its origin, Paik himself deflected the honor of being the first television artist. In a text published on the occasion of his 1963 exhibition Exposition of Music—Electronic Television at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Paik opens with a credit that today most art historians would

Journal

October – MIT Press

Published: Jul 1, 2008

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