A Visionary is Born
1932
Nam June Paik is born on July 20, 1932, in Seoul, Korea. He is the third son and youngest child of a prosperous business family.
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Nam June Paik is born on July 20, 1932, in Seoul, Korea. He is the third son and youngest child of a prosperous business family.
The term “cathode ray tube” is trademarked by RCA, though the product first became available as early as 1922.
The first commercially produced electronic TV sets containing cathode ray tubes are manufactured by Telefunken in Germany.
The first commercially produced electronic TV sets containing cathode ray tubes are manufactured by Telefunken in Germany.
Cable TV first becomes available in the United States.
Norbert Weiner, an American mathematician and philosopher, publishes Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, a seminal book that provides a theoretical foundation for the study of cybernetics and analog computing.
The first commercially available closed-circuit television (CCTV) system is released by Vericon, an American government contractor. CCTV was first used in 1942 by Siemens AG to observe the takeoff of V2 rockets in Nazi Germany. This and other early CCTV systems are not yet able to record and store information.
The Paik family moves to Hong Kong to escape the Korean War.
The Paik family moves to Tokyo, where Paik enrolls at Tokyo University to study music, art history, and aesthetics.
The Korean War—between the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—officially commences on June 25 and continues until an armistice agreement is signed on July 27, 1953.
Nam June Paik is born on July 20, 1932, in Seoul, Korea. He is the third son and youngest child of a prosperous business family.
MoreThe Paik family moves to Tokyo, where Paik enrolls at Tokyo University to study music, art history, and aesthetics.
MorePaik graduates from Tokyo University in 1956 with a degree in aesthetics. The artist moves to Germany to continue his study of music with the composer...
MorePaik meets John Cage in Darmstadt, Germany. Cage would become a significant, lifelong influence and friend to the artist and a frequent collaborator.
MorePaik’s first solo exhibition “Exposition of Music — Electronic Television” is organized by the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany. The exhibition...
MorePaik leaves Germany for Japan. His first robot, Robot K-456, is created in Tokyo with the assistance of Shuya Abe, an electronics engineer with a...
MorePaik is granted a John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and uses the funds to purchase his first Sony videotape recorder,...
MoreIn an essay later reproduced in the Flykingen Bulletin (Stockholm, 1967), Paik describes his idea for a “video telephone” through which “confidential...
MoreOn February 9, Charlotte Moorman is arrested at the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque in New York and charged with indecency for performing Paik’s Opera...
MoreIn his report “Expanded Education for the Paper-less Society,” written during a residency at Stony Brook University, Paik predicts the use of...
MorePaik and Shuya Abe debut the Paik-Abe Video Synthesizer during a residency at the public broadcasting station WGBH in Boston. The synthesizer is able...
MorePaik creates TV Glasses, composed of a pair of eyeglasses outfitted with small TV monitors that broadcast video imagery. Forty-two years later, Google...
MoreGlobal Groove, a video created by Paik in collaboration with John Godfrey, is a pastiche of found and original footage that explores the impact of new...
MoreIn a report commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, Nam June Paik coins the phrase “electronic superhighway,” referring to a broadband...
MorePaik collaborates on his first satellite telecast with the artists Joseph Beuys and Douglas Davis as part of Documenta 6. Paik marries Shigeko Kubota,...
MoreThe Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City mounts Paik’s first major solo museum exhibition, organized by John G. Hanhardt. On the occasion...
MorePaik’s live program Good Morning Mr. Orwell is broadcast simultaneously from New York and Paris and transmitted to France, Germany, Korea, the...
MorePaik wins first prize for Best Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with his work Artist as Nomad in the German Pavilion.
MorePaik is invited to a State Dinner at the White House. His pants accidentally drop in the receiving line while he is shaking hands with President Bill...
More“The Worlds of Nam June Paik,” a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, opens in February and...
MoreThe Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin organizes the exhibition “Nam June Paik: Global Groove.” The exhibition brings Paik’s work back to Germany and...
MoreThe term “cathode ray tube” is trademarked by RCA, though the product first became available as early as 1922.
MoreThe first commercially produced electronic TV sets containing cathode ray tubes are manufactured by Telefunken in Germany.
MoreThe first commercially produced electronic TV sets containing cathode ray tubes are manufactured by Telefunken in Germany.
MoreNorbert Weiner, an American mathematician and philosopher, publishes Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, a...
MoreThe first commercially available closed-circuit television (CCTV) system is released by Vericon, an American government contractor. CCTV was first...
MoreThe Korean War—between the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea)—officially commences on June 25...
MoreColor television sets are introduced to the United States. Due to high prices and the scarcity of television programs produced in color, the sets will...
MoreThe first American national color broadcast airs on January 1 with the Tournament of Roses Parade.
MoreThe first commercially successful videotape recorder is produced by the American electronics company Ampex. The product’s prohibitive retail price of...
MoreThe first working integrated circuit—now known as a microchip—is introduced on September 12 by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments. Robert Noyce,...
MoreThe Jetsons, an animated sitcom, airs on September 23. It depicts a futuristic utopia in the year 2062 filled with robots, flying saucers, and...
MoreThe first home videotape recorder (VTR), called the Telcan, is produced by the Nottingham Electronic Valve Company and can be purchased in the United...
MoreThe Video Home System (VHS), a consumer-grade analog videotape cassette that can record and store information, is developed by the Victor Company of...
MoreThe first commercial electronic desktop computer, the Programma 101, is launched by the Italian company Olivetti at the New York World’s Fair. It is...
MoreThe television show Lost in Space airs for the first time on September 15. It follows the adventures of a family chosen to colonize space in the year...
MoreThe Sony Corporation releases the first home video-tape recorder (VTR) model CV-2000 in August for $695. It uses a half-inch-wide videotape on a...
MoreAn early iteration of the Internet called the ARPANET allows multiple separate networks to be joined together into a larger network. The first...
MoreA prototype of the first portable cellular phone is introduced by Motorola.
MoreIBM develops a portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer, APL Machine Portable). In 1983 PC World designates it as “the world’s first...
MoreNASA launches the first experimental Direct Broadcast satellite, named ATS-6, on May 30. The satellite is used for educational experiments and creates...
MoreStar Wars, an epic science fiction saga about galactic civil war, premieres on May 25. The movie features droids, robotic machines that possess...
MoreThe Sony Walkman first becomes available to the public in Japan on July 1. The device is marketed as the world’s first low-cost portable stereo. It...
MoreMTV, originally called Music Television, debuts on August 1. The cable station specializes in playing music videos selected by video jockeys, or VJs....
MoreIBM releases its first personal computer (PC) on August 12. By the end of 1982, the PC has become so popular that one is sold every minute of the...
MoreThe first compact disc (CD) is manufactured by the Philips Company in Germany on August 17. Sony begins selling its first audio CD players on October...
MoreThe term Internet is first used to define how a network connects through Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
MoreOn January 24, Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh 128K, the first mass-marketed personal computer featuring a graphical user interface and a mouse.
MoreThe WorldWideWeb is first introduced as a free and accessible information platform by the British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee in a proposal...
MoreIntel introduces its Pentium computer chip. For the first time an entire computer central processing unit (CPU) can be fit onto one single chip,...
MoreGoogle is incorporated on September 4. The search engine was conceived in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they...
MoreiTunes, a music management application, is launched by Apple, Inc. on January 9. Later that year on October 12, Apple introduces a portable media...
MoreSkype is launched in August. This new application allows users to communicate remotely by voice and video means, free of charge, with other Skype...
MoreMySpace, a social networking service, is launched in August. By April 2004 it has one million users. The company is acquired by News Corporation in...
MoreFacebook, an online social networking platform, is founded on February 4 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and...
MoreA video-sharing website called YouTube is created by three former PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Users can upload, view,...
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