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Exhibition unknown | Participation TV
«Exhibition unknown», 1963
Participation TV, 1963
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A sketch reconstructing the 1976 TV room. Showing how the TV sets were distributed round the room, and the way each one was modified, the reconstruction was compiled on the basis of a description of the room by Tomas Schmit, who helped Paik set up the exhibition. It explains the individual functions and their part in distorting the TV pictures. top left 'upstairs, TV – radio, amplitude -> point' top right in the room: 'You talk – stars point' beneath it: 'Horizontal modulation' centre: 'looking down – broken' on the right-hand side of the wall: 'Kuba TV – audio tape recorder influences sync separation point' on the left beneath it: 'vertical roll' to the left of that one: 'most complicated – 3 sinus oscillation' further to the left: 'negative TV without synchronization' on the right-hand side of the wall below it: 'floor contact' bottom: 'one line Zen TV' unlabelled, left, top/centre, the group of two TV sets with horizontally and vertically striped pictures Dieter Daniels


 Exhibition unknown

Paik’s first major exhibition was held from 11 to 20 March 1963 in a gallery run by architect Rolf Jährling in his private residence. The title Paik chose indicates his transition from music to the electronic image. Four ‘prepared’ pianos, mechanical sound objects, several record and tape installations, twelve modified TV sets, and the head of a freshly slaughtered ox above the entrance awaited visitors. The show ran for ten days and opened for two hours daily between 7.30 and 9.30pm. Newspaper reports indicate that visitors to the show, which was distributed over the entire house (and did not stop at the private quarters of the Jährling family), experienced the show and its setting as a ‘total event’, many guests taking no more than a perfunctory glance at the room with TV sets. Today, this room is seen as the starting point of the video art that later developed, although Paik, not yet having access to video equipment, was still modifying inexpensive second-hand TV sets to distort the TV programmes as they were being broadcast. Germany had only one TV station up to 1963, and it broadcast for no more than a few hours each evening – possibly explaining the late opening-time of Paik's show. Unlike the Fluxus actions which took place concurrently, Paik’s project did not attract TV coverage.