NJP Reader #3 – Cyberneticus

Following “Contributions to an Artistic Anthropology” and “Ecological Thinking” of the previous issues of NJP Reader, it is “Cyberneticus” that put together six papers in this time. In 2012, the Nam June Paik Art Center celebrated the 80th anniversary of the artist’s birth, by the special exhibition Nostalgia is an Extended Feedback and the symposium Man-Machine Duet for Life, all of which drew on the theme of cybernetics. A theory of system and information in a narrow sense, and a philosophy of life and knowledge linking man, machine and nature together in a broad sense, cybernetics was a great source of inspiration for Paik who sought to couple technology and humans, technology and nature, and technology and art. He defined cybernetics as “the science of pure relations, or relationship itself” and “the exploitation of boundary regions between and across various existing sciences;” he then shuffled the cards of disparate elements and presented them in a single coordinate of his cybernetic art. ‘Paik the cyberneticus’ can be explored in the six scholarly papers in this issue of NJP Reader. In addition, from this issue begins to feature a detailed analysis of a series of Paik’s seminal videotapes housed in the Nam June Paik Art Center Video Archives. The first video selected is Guadalcanal Requiem which embodies Paik’s views and practices regarding the universal matter of wars and cultural communication. Instead of a naive utopian ideal of communication for everybody, it is hoped that, reading NJP Reader, you will have an opportunity to think about what lies behind Paik’s stress on communication, to think about the role of media art and the conditions of human beings in the digital and Internet age beyond the realm of art.