Nomadic boundary-breaker Paik’s travelogue to Scotland

Nam June Paik Art Center organized the exhibition Transmitted Live – Nam June Paik Resounds as part of the 2013 Edinburgh International Festival. The Festival chose Paik as one of the most relevant artists for the 2013 grand theme ‘art and technology,’ and officially invited Nam June Paik Art Center, the only art institution dedicated to Paik in the world. In Edinburgh Nam June Paik Art Center mounted its first exhibition abroad, using its own collection and research and curatorial power built up so far. Transmitted Live took place from 8 August to 19 October in Talbot Rice Gallery, an art museum of the University of Edinburgh that turned out many influential figures like Charles Darwin, Adam Smith, David Hume. The exhibition commemorated the 50th anniversary of Paik’s 1963 Exposition of Music – Electronic Television, and it was the first Paik exhibition in Scotland where John Logie Baird invented television and James Clerk Maxwell developed electromagnetism. It was a great opportunity to make visitors from all around the globe to the world’s largest festival and also academic communities of the distinguished national university, know more about Paik’s art. In conjunction with the exhibition, a series of performances was organized together with international artists Takehisa Kosugi, Okkyung Lee, Byungjun Kwon and Haroon Mirza who worked with Nam June Paik Art Center before. The exhibition opening was broadcast live by the BBC’s online channel The Space, and the BBC produced a short documentary about Paik and Transmitted Live as well. Transcending artistic genres drawing on technology, Paik’s art was transmitted from Scotland, whose journey was recorded in this exhibition catalogue. The book includes various photographs to give a vivid account of the exhibition to Korean readers who might not view the exhibition.