Storytelling in the Digital Era
Ranked #11,740 in Culture & Society, #234,106 overall
GOODBYE MR. NAM JUNE PAIK! the mischievous old provocateur and pioneer - the future is now
GOODBYE MR. NAM JUNE PAIK! was a message I received by e-mail at the night of 29th January 2006. This great pioneer of electronic media had left us. Only the new fashion he created to tell us stories; his art, remains.
The following morning I attached this message to the entrance door of the offices of the Foundation of Art and Technology, I governed back then.
Nam June Paik was equally known for his acute as well as critical observations of the new media and the social condition around it. In 1976 he declared: "Without electricity, there can be no art".
Nam June Paik has also been credited as responsible for naming the concept "information superhighway" and, most famously the declaration "the future is now"!
Epic in Transition - Where Will We Arrive?

Since the turn of the century many great minds and talented craftsmen have left us to cope on our own. The longing which I would by no means call nostalgic but a sincere realisation that an era where historic contracts were signed and the fashion of building reality as we still know it today had passed. We are at the turn of accepting a great change, we all have new tools within our reach to grasp this somehow altered reality we are in. We have all the knowledge developed by the previous generations still available for us; how do we want to preserve it, what do we want to use it for?
Walter Benjamin raised this concern in the context of storytelling: "The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out."
Still there are also things unchanged: the urge to interact with the world, feeling of friendship, sadness, joy, togetherness, belonging, sharing, also with all critical aspects present. The leading role of a human character, human emotions and the societies we live in, have not yet been replaced by those of machines, abstraction or technology as a focal point of storytelling. As Hannah Arendt reflects on it: "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
The fashion of how to tell a good story may have found new formalities and as such developed new techniques for telling, but the stories are only complete when the audience brings the virtual world into the actual one, combining their own reality with the one perceived from the audio-visual screen. This multidirectional movement is one of the keys for the storytelling of new media art of today. Hoping that this new era will enable us to carry forward with this ancient form in humanity!
One lead we could consider following can be found from the writings of John Steinbeck: "A man who tells secrets or stories must think of who is hearing or reading, for a story has as many versions as it has readers. Everyone takes what he wants or can from it and thus changes it to his measure. Some pick out parts and reject the rest, some strain the story through their mesh of prejudice, some paint it with their own delight."
Essential reading in New Media Art
all recommended
New Media Art may cause to Think Different!
Digital Media Art Meets Merleau-Ponty

Notions of perception, time and subjectivity are central to all art, where traditionally the visual arts have been understood as spatial and music as a temporal. Audiovisual new media art proves this division to be problematic.
Read more at Discerning Subject in Spacetime
Remediation: Understanding New Media
this one is exquisite!
Old and New Media Collide
provides an interesting disposition to the contemporary media
Nam June Paik TV Buddha

- Nam June Paik TV Buddha
- TV Buddha is an enigmatic work by Nam June Paik which consists of a Buddha statue gazing on a video screen, to his own image, being projected there by a closed circuit video camera.
"It is the historical necessity, if there is a historical necessity in history, that a new decade of electronic television should follow from the past decade of electronic music."
Nam June Paik
'Without electricity, there can be no art'
Nam June Paik
'Storytelling reveals meaning without
committing the error of defining it'
Hannah Arendt
Literary references
for Hannah Arendt
vote for your favourites!
Between Past and Future (Penguin Classics) by Hannah Arendt, Jerome Kohn
Arendt describes the loss of meaning of the tradit more...0 points
The Life of the Mind (Combined 2 Volumes in 1) (Vols 1&2) by Hannah Arendt
The author?s final work, presented in a one-volume more...0 points
On Revolution (Penguin Classics) by Hannah Arendt
Tracing the gradual evolution of revolutions since more...0 points
Responsibility and Judgment by Hannah Arendt
Responsibility and Judgment gathers together unpub more...0 points
Hannah Arendt by Julia Kristeva
Twenty-five years after her death, we are still co more...0 points
Julia Kristeva
On feminism, semiotics and female geniuses with acumen
- Julia Kristeva - art and language
- Julia Kristeva could be described as philosopher, literary critic, psychoanalyst, feminist, as well as a novelist. Her concepts cover a vast array of ideas nevertheless always with clarity and cohesion.
Time in New Media
the 1960's genre of short films; is there anything in common?

Read more at Beautiful Promises with Laughter
'The art of storytelling is reaching its
end because the epic side of
truth, wisdom, is dying out'
Walter Benjamin
Literary references
for Walter Benjamin
vote for your favourites!
Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin
Studies on contemporary art and culture by one of more...0 points
Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings by Walter Benjamin
"This book is just that: reflections of a hig more...0 points
The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media by Walter Benjamin
This essay, however, is only the beginning of a va more...0 points
The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin
"Quite simply, the Passagen-Werk is one of th more...0 points
Selected Writings
of Walter Benjamin
World through Digital Art

The early pioneers of Digital Art started experimenting already during the 1950's.
'Oscillons' that Ben Laposky, American mathematician and artist, generated by an electronic machine in 1950 are considered as some of the earliest images of the digital realm.
Also, at the end of the 50's Nam June Paik and John Cage meet each other. Both became important leaders of the digital/new media creation.
Read more at World through Digital Art
' A man who tells secrets or stories
must think of who is hearing or reading,
for a story has as many versions
as it has readers '
John Steinbeck
Literary references
for John Steinbeck
Nam June Paik
Related lenses
come and vote for your favourite!
Discerning Subject in Spacetime
'In perception we do not think the object and we d more...0 points
Bill Viola - becoming light
Bill Viola, one of the pioneers in video art, exhi more...0 points
Beautiful Promises with Laughter
'Time simultaneously makes the present pass and pr more...0 points
Nam June Paik TV Buddha
Nam June Paik TV Buddha, 1974-82TV Buddha is an en more...0 points
World through Digital Art
Digital Art is a form of Contemporary Art where th more...0 points
' the Future is now '
Nam June Paik
Storytelling livre d'Or
Storytelling Guestbook
Come and share your thoughts!
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AppalachianCountry
Jul 1, 2009 @ 7:34 am | delete
- Great lens. Thank-you for opening our eyes to what is happening in this area. We are green in it. 5 stars*****
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allinfoisfree Jan 18, 2009 @ 3:44 pm | delete
- Awesome stuff! 5 *'s!
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chefkeem
Jan 18, 2009 @ 2:11 pm | delete
- A hearty SquidAngel Blessing for this thought-provoking work. 5*s :)
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Nam June Paik rarities in auction
by mariatjader
I am digital media professional, artist, writer and designer with an academic outlook through post-structural philosophy.
I am working on my PhD thes...
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