Magnet TV was displayed in Nam June Paik’s first solo exhibition in America, Nam June Paik: Cybernetic Arts and Music in 1965. The audience was able to alter the images on the TV screen by moving a magnet. The strong magnetic field interferes with and distorts the TV’s electronic signals so that the audience can involve themselves in developing beautiful abstract patterns on the screen, as Paik intended. By exemplifying a process of simple manipulation of a screen to create wonderful images, this work predicts the future of video art.
