[백남준] "촬영하지 않고 멋진 영화 만들 순 없나?"1964년

백남준은 1964년 "촬영하지 않고 어떻게 영화를 만들 수 있을까?"라는 질문을 던졌다. 그 작품이 바로 '영화를 위한 선'이다. 백남준은 그런 전시개념을 선불교에서 가져왔다. 백남준 왈 "더러운 바닥 주위에 영화를 찍지 않는 새 필름은 걷어차 버리고, 먼지와 임의의 흠집이 쌓이도록 놔두면 전시 준비는 다 끝난 것이다. 이런 방식의 개념을 가지고 전시하길 권장했다> 백남준은 1965년 뉴욕 뉴 시네마 페스티벌에서 이런 선불교를 바탕으로 하는 실험영화를 제안하다.

Nam June Paik, Zen for Film, 1962–64 (installation view, SFMOMA); courtesy the Estate of Nam June Paik; © Estate of Nam June Paik; photo: Rudolf Frieling

How do you make a film without filming? Paik asked himself and his contemporaries this question in 1964, as avant-garde artists across disciplines radically pushed to question the limits and boundaries of their chosen mediums. Paik’s solution came in the form of Zen for Film, in which a blank 16mm film leader runs through a projector.

The work runs on a continuous loop in the gallery, though Paik first presented the blank film inside a cinema. In doing so, he encouraged the viewer to become aware of the physical aspects of the projection and viewing experience: dust and scratches on the film, the projector, the screen, oneself, and other audience members. When it was shown at the New Cinema Festival in New York in 1965, Paik stood in front of the projection, casting and watching his own shadow.

“Paik even recommended kicking the pristine new blank film around a dirty floor and letting it accumulate dust and random scratches to prepare the material for exhibition,” Frieling says. “He did not like things to be too perfect. In fact, he later claimed that, ‘When too perfect, lieber Gott böse,’ which translates to, ‘When too perfect, dear God angry.’”

Nam June Paik, TV Chair, 1968; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Phyllis C. Wattis Fund for Major Accessions; © Estate of Nam June Paik; photo: Benjamin Blackwell 

철학(수학)이 대답을 준다면 예술은 대답보다 더 큰 질문을 던지는 것이다. 여기서 역사가 중요해 지는 것은 그게 미래를 내다보는 거울이기 때문이다. 그리고 이 모든 걸 글로벌하게 종합적으로 보게 하는 것은 바로 인류학이다. If philosophy (mathematics) gives answers to all problems, Art(culture) ask questions that are bigger than those answers. Also, history is important here because it is a mirror looking into the future. And it is anthropology that allows us to see all of this globally and comprehensively with overall.

<위대한 예술이란 결국 결정적인 해답을 제공하는 게 아니라, 시대에 맞는 질문을 던지는 것이다><“예술은 항상 보는 사람의 눈에 달려 있다(감상의 주인은 관객이다. 관객이 하늘이다. 인내천 사상). 우리가 보는 것은 터무니없는 병치(an absurd juxtaposition)일 뿐이다. 그래야 보는 행위가 재미있다. 그리고 관객이 전시에 참여할 수 있다>

Paik predicted that video technologies would become so integrated into our daily lives that they would blend in with our living environments, taking the form of video furniture and video walls. TV Chair plays with this notion by proposing an absurd piece of video furniture. Here, a CCTV camera points down at a chair with a television under its transparent seat, which displays the live video feed. It is the most recent of Paik’s works to enter the museum’s collection, and a provocative, humorous one.

“TV Chair seemingly asks its beholder to sit down, a movement that would effectively prevent them from looking at the TV mounted under the seat,” Frieling explains. “So, would the ‘audience’ here be the individual’s behind? Is one supposed to interrupt the live image on a screen by fulfilling the implicit request to sit down? Is it a logical choice to either look or to sit?”

Great art asks questions without providing definitive answers, notes Frieling. “Far from being a matter of frustration, there is humor and a liberating moment in Paik’s conceptual and Zen-inspired practice,” he says. “The art will always be in the eye of the beholder; what we see is an absurd juxtaposition, and that makes the act of looking fun too.”

<아래 참고> https://www.sfmoma.org/read/nam-june-paik-exhibition-guide-curator-picks/

Nam June Paik: Exhibition Guide + Curator Picks

Paik lying among televisions. Zurich, 1991. (Photo: © Timm Rautert, courtesy of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) 예술가는 막힌 구멍을 뚫고 꼬인 세상의 끈을 풀고 그걸 사방팔방으로 얼기설기 초연결하는 사람이다(Super Connector)