This is a special limited presentation of Global Groove, created by artist Nam June Paik. The opening words of Global Groove presciently state that “this is a glimpse of the video landscape of tomorrow, when you will be able to switch to any TV station on the earth, and TV Guide will be as fat as the Manhattan telephone book.”
This electronic collage of video manipulations serves as a groundbreaking piece in the history of video art. Global Groove was originally produced by WNET’s Channel 13 in 1973 as part of its Television Laboratory – an experimental center in which Nam June Paik was artist-in-residence. Global Groove melds Japanese commercials with performances by avant-garde artists like John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Allen Ginsberg. Dancers move through synthetic spaces of warping colors, Charlotte Moorman plays the TV Cello and iconographic images like Richard Nixon’s face twist and turn through magnetic manipulations.
Global Groove is a smorgasbord of experimental visual expressions. Nam June Paik and his team have laid out a dense palette of video art in a stream-of-conscious presentation that influenced decades of work that followed. The project served as a manifesto on global communications and brought together Neo-Dada sensibilities to truly disrupt the television-viewing experience.
Please note that Global Groove contains a mix of varying video qualities.
