Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 4: Digital Era (1960s)
1963
Exposition of Music—Electronic Television Exhibition by Nam June Paik

Paik’s first exhibit, at Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal in March 1963, marked the birth of video art and represented turning point in the dematerialization of art. The pioneering Korean artist, then working in Germany, transformed thirteen televisions into a multimedia installation that incorporated music, moving images and electronic sound. He combined technology and art in a novel way, using television sets as a canvas to create a new medium of artistic expression, helping to free art from the confines of the static canvas and anticipating much of today’s animated art. Paik’s work showed how technology could be used to create art accessible to the masses through the use of electronic media. It was thus an important example of both mass-media art and the dematerialization of art, two of Casey Reas’s preconditions for NFTs.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random.
Sources
People
Movements
video art
Filed under
- Ideas
- dematerialization, Installation Art, Mass Media Art, video art
- Technologies
- NFTs, television
- People
- Casey Reas, Nam June Paik
- Exhibitions
- Exposition of Music—Electronic Television
- Organisations
- Galerie Parnass
- Places
- Germany, Korea, Wuppertal
Echoes across time
- 1982 · V-yramid by Nam June Paik
- 1988 · Nam June Paik Builds Media Tower for Seoul Olympics
- 1981 · MTV Goes Live
Le Random editorials
- Casey Reas, Lauren Lee McCarthy & Chandler McWilliams on Expanding Software, Peter Bauman, August 20, 2024
- Casey Reas on the History of Generative Art - Part 2, Peter Bauman, July 5, 2023
- Casey Reas on the History of Generative Art - Part 1, Peter Bauman, June 22, 2023
- Marlene Wenger on Bringing Magic Back, Peter Bauman, August 3, 2026
Le Random podcast
- Elevating the Generative Art Space (Launch Episode) with Casey Reas, ciphrd, Anne Spalter, Anika Meier & Georg Bak — listen with transcript on Le Random (28 Jun 2023, 52 min). Featuring Casey Reas. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 8—Tooling Era (2000s) with Christiane Paul, Casey Reas, Christa Sommerer & Golan Levin — listen with transcript on Le Random (15 May 2024, 64 min). Featuring Casey Reas. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt I (1960s) with Dr A Michael Noll — listen with transcript on Le Random (07 Sep 2023, 60 min). Transcript mentions Nam June Paik. Chapter 4’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify
- Timeline Ch 4—Digital Era Pt II (1960s) with Michael Spalter — listen with transcript on Le Random (21 Sep 2023, 77 min). Chapter 4’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify