In conjunction with the exhibition Play It Again, Paik, Nam June Paik Art Center presents Random Access Hall screenings. The exhibition is an exhibition that showcases interview footage of Nam June Paik from the video archive of the Nam June Paik Art center alongside his artworks. In the Random Access Hall, you can watch the original video of the interviews featured in the exhibition.

My Mix ’81 is a work composed through the editing of Nam June Paik’s early single-channel videos, including Lake Placid ’80 part 2 (1980), Electronic Opera No. 2 (1972) and Suite 212 (1975/1977). The first work to appear in the video, Lake Placid ’80 part 2, was produced on commission from the Olympic Organizing Committee to commemorate the Winter Olympics held in Lake Placid, New York. Set to “Devil With a Blue Dress On” by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels—also featured in Global Groove—the video repeatedly edits and plays scenes of dancers from Global Groove alongside footage of figure skating, ski jumping, hockey, and other Winter Olympic events. The screen, which unfolds like a music video, concludes with the image of Allen Ginsberg murmuring while playing small cymbals, appearing together with the Olympic logo. The next work shown is Electronic Opera No. 2, created to accompany Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Using footage of a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra as its primary background, the video is edited with scenes of a Beethoven bust being attacked, a burning piano being played, and patterns generated through a video synthesizer. The orchestra’s performance comes to an end with the image of the burning piano collapsing, followed by applause from the audience. The final work is Suite 212. This video is edited from the other series of Suite 212: Selling New York, which visitors can encounter at the entrance of Play It Again, Paik. Set to the prelude of Verdi’s opera La Traviata, it offers a markedly different atmosphere from the cheerful and lively tone of Selling New York.

Between each work, excerpts from a conversation between Nam June Paik and Esther Schwartz Harriet are inserted. Esther Schwartz Harriet was the host of WNED-TV’s program Conversations in the Arts, in which she interviewed numerous artists, including Nam June Paik. The footage presented in Play It Again, Paik is part of that interview, edited using Paik-Abe Synthesizer. Beyond the edited footage, Nam June Paik also shares a wide range of views on television and video art. Nam June Paik states, “The problem with television is properness. The faked, plastic properness must be taken out of the cathode-ray tube. Just as John Cage took seriousness out of music, I took out seriousness from serious television. This is the small contribution I have made to video art. And I hope to be remembered for that freedom.” Finally, viewers encounter the image of a young Nam June Paik filled with bright and free-spirited energy, counting down the final thirty seconds of broadcast time one number at a time, from one to thirty, bringing the program to a close.