“You were only half right.” On 1 January 1984, when the future that George Orwell had anticipated in his novel 1984 became the present, Paik staged a satellite live broadcast connecting up New York and Paris, titled Good Morning Mr. Orwell. Here in what was at once an exhibition of avant-garde art and a show of popular entertainment, it seems Paik wanted to talk back to Orwell: we have a world, rather different from what you foresaw. Good Morning Mr. Orwell was a kind of arena where the two intellectuals entered debates with each other. At the intersection and divergence of the works of Paik and Orwell, both of whom deeply thought about the society and the future, emerge a series of compelling issues which go beyond the mere confrontation between ‘dystopian’ and ‘utopian’ world views.
30 years after 1984, what has changed and what has remained? To pose these questions, Nam June Paik Art Center(NJPAC) opens up Paik-Orwell Club: Warez Academy, the seventh edition of NJPAC’s annual symposium Gift of Nam June Paik. The symposium was usually a one-day academic event, but this year it will be a year-round series of events. The term ‘warez academy’ is derived from a title of Paik’s sculptural work. It takes the form of an old-fashioned one-room schoolhouse, but its contents are very futuristic. The outer surface of this construction is enveloped by hard covers which span the broad scope of subjects from sociology to politics to psychology. Inside the room, such a variety of images as president Bush, AIDS, E=MC2 are flashed across television monitors. The term ‘warez’ is a leetspeak meaning an illegal distribution of copyrighted files and softwares. Using the Internet slang for his work, Paik represents the traditional way of communication reborn via cutting-edge technology, in terms of different aspects of contemporary society in the deluge of information through technological developments. Like this work of Paik’s, Paik-Orwell Club: Warez Academy will discuss Orwell’s, Paik’s and our own days together.
Open to everyone, Paik-Orwell Club: Warez Academy is centered around, but not limited to, Orwell’s 1984 and Paik’s Good Morning Mr. Orwell. This is expected to become the second round of virtual debates between Paik and Orwell exploring broader contexts and underlying matters of the two works, both historical and contemporary. You are also more than welcome to participate in the website of Paik-Orwell Club: Warez Academy to create a sort of cyber forum, to materialize the ideal of Paik’s own Cyber Forum, so that interesting discussions could be taking place across the globe throughout the year, to restore the belief in the social power of art.
※ Please make sure that your email has the subject heading of ‘Paik-Orwell Club booking’ and the following information: name, institution, telephone number, and event title. Text messages will be sent to confirm your booking.
| 1 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 2 April |
|---|---|---|
| Speaker | Se-hoon Ko (Professor, School of Public Administration, Korea University) | |
| Title | George Orwell, an Intellectual | |
| 2 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 30 April |
| Speaker | – Namoo Kim(Designer / Professor, School of Design, Hankyong National University) – Jung-ho Suh(Media Artist / Staff News Designer, News Graphics Division, YTN) |
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| Title | Design, News Graphics, and Big Brother | |
| 3 | Date/Time | 2pm Friday 23 May |
| Speaker | Ingo Günther (Media Artist) | |
| Title | Globe, Global: Social Change and Media Art * This event is co-organized by Goethe-Institut Korea, ADeKo(Alumninetzwerk Deutschland-Korea) and Nam June Paik Art Center. |
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| 4 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 25 June |
| Speaker | Masaki Fujihata (Media Artist, Professor, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts) | |
| Title | Technology Having Five Senses | |
| 5 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 23 July |
| Speaker | John Sanborn (Creative Director / Video Artist) | |
| Title | The Story is in the Telling | |
| 6 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 17 September |
| Speaker | – Sarah Grochala (Associate Artist, Headlong / Lecturer, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London) – Michael Takeo Magruder (Media Artist / Researcher, Visualisation Lab, King’s College, University of London) |
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| Title | Life of Digital Double | |
| 7 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 24 September |
| Speaker | – Sang Ae Park(Archivist, Nam June Paik Art Center) – Kijun Lee(Technician, Nam June Paik Art Center) – Sohyun Ahn (Curator, Nam June Paik Art Center) |
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| Title | From Ephemerality to Eternity: To Preserve Electromagnetic Signals | |
| 8 | Date/Time | 2pm Wednesday 15 October |
| Speaker | Paul Garrin (Media Artist) | |
| Title | Velvet Totalitarianism: Living in a world that Orwell never could have imagined |
※ The program is subject to change depending on the circumstances, and a new event can be added. Please keep an eye on the updates.
