unmediated

Michael Parenti has created an installation piece for the exhibition "bensiz" ("without me") at address istanbul, titled "paiksiz" ("without paik"), in tribute to the death of video artist Nam June Paik. Pictures HERE.

The piece is comprised of an old macintosh g4 laptop in a plexiglass case, with an riff on paik's original installation piece, "ego machine" (1974). The desktop picture has the words "paik, paik paik....etc" as the original, with a few differences: the words are struck through, symbolizing paik's death, and static video snow has been added. The laptop is also running a 7 minute film in continuous loop, which is projected on a semi transparent curtain in the middle of the 35 meter long space. The film was created in grid pro, using original footage of paik in his coffin, which Todd Thille filmed at the memorial service on Saturday, February 4th, in New York City, This original footage is mixed with close up shots of fingers on a typewriter keyboard as if Paik's ego is still typing his name - even in death, and is seperated into the three channels of video color space - R, G, and B - symbolizing the color space which paik worked in, and is accompanied the song "Death is not the end" a cover version by the austrian band, "Der Scheitel". The surround soundsystem in the glass enclosed space was courteously provided by Bang & Olufsen