Nam June Paik
Mein Kölner Dom
1980
© Nam June Paik ; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Franz Wahmhof
- Artist / Artist group
- Nam June Paik
- Title
- Mein Kölner Dom
- Year
- 1980
- Category
- Installation
- Video
- Format
- Analog video
- Material / Technique
- 1-channel video and mixed media installation; components partially variable; aquarium (glass) with plastic lid and LED light, two miniatures of Cologne Cathedral (bronze and silver), goldfish, aquatic plants, television set, digitized video as file, media playback technology (SD card, Brightsignplayer, video, audio, and power cables) .
- Dimensions / Duration
- installation dimensions variable
- Collection
- Loan of Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation
- Description
- Behind an aquarium filled with goldfish gliding between two miniature replicas of Cologne Cathedral, a television set plays a frenetic montage: dancers, roller skaters, figure skaters, ice hockey players, and ski jumpers whirl across the screen to the rock song »Devil With the Blue Dress On«. The flow is interrupted by sequences of poet Allen Ginsberg chanting mantras. Seen through the water of the aquarium, the images shimmer and distort. Conceived in 1980 for the exhibition »Mein Kölner Dom. Zeitgenössische Künstler sehen den Kölner Dom« at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, the installation epitomizes Nam June Paik’s exploration of how new technologies alter our perception. Here, the aquarium functions as a “proto-television”: before the modern gaze was fixed on screens, watching fish in water was itself a contemplative practice, particularly within East Asian cultures. Paik also returns to a theme that runs throughout his practice: the interplay of spirituality and mass media. His installation thrives on contrasts. In Korea, fish symbolize luck, abundance, and prosperity, yet they are equally charged with Christian meaning. The miniature cathedrals, mass-produced souvenirs, point to the commodification of the sacred. The video projects an exuberant panorama of popular and mass culture, but Ginsberg’s chanting infuses it with a meditative counterpoint. What emerges is a vision of spirituality under the conditions of electronic media—where media consumption and contemplation coincide. As Dirk Teuber observed in the 1980 catalogue for »Mein Kölner Dom«: “Nam June Paik is planning a video installation for the exhibition, The Cathedral as Medium. For this he has produced a videotape in which roller skaters on the cathedral square, set against the Gothic backdrop, are juxtaposed with Olympic figure skaters and color-modified with the help of a synthesizer. The tape will be shown on a monitor through an aquarium. The movements of the actors on the screen are paraphrased by the fish swimming between the miniature cathedrals from Cologne souvenir shops. Paik links real, living movement with the fictive movement of the image sequence and raises the question of the degree of reality of what is seen. While the videotape produces a fictive time, the movement of the fish unfolds in a more immediate reality, closer to the viewer. The question arises as to which level of reality the viewer accepts as real.” [1] [1] Dirk Teuber, “Der Dom als Medium,” in: Exhibition Catalogue »Mein Kölner Dom. Zeitgenössische Künstler sehen den Kölner Dom«, Kölnischer Kunstverein / Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1980, pp. 118–119.
Author
Margit
Rosen
Images
Nam June Paik, »Mein Kölner Dom«, 1980, 1-channel video and mixed media installation; components partially variable; aquarium (glass) with plastic lid and LED light, two miniatures of Cologne Cathedral (bronze and silver), goldfish, aquatic plants, television set, digitized video as file, media playback technology (SD card, Brightsignplayer, video, audio, and power cables) ., installation dimensions variable, Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.© Nam June Paik ; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Franz Wahmhof
Nam June Paik, »Mein Kölner Dom«, 1980, 1-channel video and mixed media installation; components partially variable; aquarium (glass) with plastic lid and LED light, two miniatures of Cologne Cathedral (bronze and silver), goldfish, aquatic plants, television set, digitized video as file, media playback technology (SD card, Brightsignplayer, video, audio, and power cables) ., installation dimensions variable, Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.© Nam June Paik ; photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, photo: Franz Wahmhof
