George Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-four

George Orwell pessimistically predicted that the mass media will dominate the people by the year of 1984, when he published the dystopian novel, 1984, in 1949, which demonstrates the darkness of the future that surveillance and control using telecommunication and mass media become an ordinary conduct. Nam June Paik refuted Orwell’s prediction, claiming “You were only half right,” and planned the satellite television show, Good Morning Mr. Orwell, in order to present a positive aspect of the mass media. The section, <George Orwell and 1984>, is designed to provide a wide view about the novel 1984 to the audiences, composed with information about Orwell himself, slogans and quotes from the novel, and also a number of books and materials related to the novel.

Archive 1. Documents and interviews related to <Good Morning Mr. Orwell>

At the very first day of the year, 1984, hundreds of artists and staffs from four different broadcasting stations gathered together in order to produce Good Morning Mr. Orwell. The prints and the publicity materials which were produced in advance for arranging the production fund are displayed in the archive section, <Good Morning Mr. Orwell>. The first draft of scenario written by Nam June Paik, and the cue sheet, which was used in the actual broadcast are also presented in this section, as well as the interviews with the producer, Carol Brandenburg, and Paul Garrin, so that it is possible to assume the scale and the process of the production at the time.

Tele-communication Cafe

Until the internet is widely used, satellite was the only means of real-time communication of audio and video among the remote places. The artists including Nam June Paik, Liza Bear, and Douglas Davis exerted their inspirations and efforts to the utmost in experimenting new possibilities of satellite and applying them to art. Tele-communication Café is meant to introduce various attempts of the artists, starting from the end of 1970s and retrace the fundamental pleasure that long distance communication has and new dimensions of space and time these works have created.

Nam June Paik, Good Morning Mr. Orwell, 1984, 1 channel video, color, sound, 60min

Good Morning Mr. Orwell was a live satellite television show, connecting New York and Paris. Hosted by George Plimpton, the artists including Laurie Anderson, Allen Ginsberg, Charlotte Moorman, and Thompson Twins presented live performances in New York. In Paris, Claude Ville was the host and the artists such as Sappho, Joseph Beuys, and Urban Socks participated as performers. Beginning with a toast between the two hosts from two different cities, the live broadcast created a double-way feedback by calling and responding diverse performances each other, and also displayed them simultaneously in a single frame. The exhibition, Good Morning Mr. Orwell 2014, displays the significant performance videos juxtaposing in one space, to give a sense of synchronism and double-way aspect of the performance, Good Morning Mr. Orwell.

Good Morning Mr. Orwell Live
New York version, 58min 11sec
Paris version, 59min, 53sec

In a spatial perspective, <Good morning, Mr. Orwell> was a broadcast program that spread to all over the world starting from New York and Paris, and in a temporal perspective, it is a live show transmitted starting from January 1, 1984 for around one hour in each country. In order to best demonstrate these characteristics, Nam June Paik preferred installation in which both versions of <Good Morning, Mr. Orwell> in New York and Paris are displayed together. In this exhibition <Good Morning, Mr. Orwell 2014>, three types of ‘Good Morning, Mr. Orwell’ in total – two versions broadcast in New York and Paris plus another one aired on KBS, 30 years ago – are presented. Materials with the analysis of detailed scenes in New York and Paris are available for audiences to compare and appreciate the shows from each country.

Archive 2. Catalogues and texts of Good Morning Mr. Orwell

Nam June Paik exhibited Good Morning Mr. Orwell, installing as a two channel video of New York and Paris version, in the large retrospective exhibition at Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in the summer of 1984. Nam June Paik’s writing, Life, Satellite, One Time – One Meeting (一期一会) is included in the catalogue of this exhibition entitled, Mostly Video. The exhibition, Art for 25 Million People, was held in DAAD Gallery, German in the same year. In the catalogue, with the same title of the exhibition, diverse photography documents and writings related to Good Morning Mr. Orwell were included.

Nam June Paik’s Letters to Lee from KBS, 1984

Nam June Paik sent a nine paged long letter to Won-Hong Lee, the president of KBS, at the end of the year 1984, from German. The letter contains straightforward and detailed comments about the broadcasting technology and progress of Good Morning Mr. Orwell, along with the program about Bye Bye Kipling, the new satellite broadcast which was planned to telecast in 1986.

Nam June Paik, Bye Bye Kipling, 1986, 1 channel video, color, sound, 30min 22sec

Rudyard Kipling, an English poet, wrote a poem which includes a famous paragraph: “East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” However, Nam June Paik attempted to prove that Kipling’s prediction is completely wrong, through the satellite performance that connects Korea, Japan, and USA. With the marathon broadcast in the background – from the Seoul Asian Games held in 1986 – the performance demonstrates various scenes in a high speed, edited just like sports coverage with images of traditional art originated from Korea and Japan, Classic music concert, and also Rock singer’s performance such as Lou Reed.

Nam June Paik, Wrap Around the World, 1988, 1 channel video, color, sound, 47min

The immense scale of satellite project that connects the whole world was accomplished planned by Nam June Paik, a week before the opening of Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988. The performance that shows diverse side of each country, such as Kung-fu and Pop concert from China, Salsa dance from Brazil, and car race from Ireland, was broadcasted via satellite relay. Nam June Paik also returned to his homeland and performed rubbing his face with rice, ketchup, and shaving cream blended altogether, wearing Korean traditional full-dress attire and hat. This project was an international broadcast program that finalizes his satellite opera trilogy, as if standing for putting an end to the age of cold war by the participation of more than ten nations including Russia and China.