Participation TV

Participation TV

Participation TV is one of the 13 experimental televisions shown in Nam June Paik’s first solo exhibition Exposition of Music — Electronic Television, which was held in Wuppertal, Germany in 1963. Its earlier form was sheer acoustic, while the later version of Participation TV visualized the amplification of sound. When the viewer makes a sound into the microphone, the monitor shows several images. The work housed by the Nam June Paik Art Center was created in 1998. When someone makes a sound into the microphone, the acoustic signals are transformed into fine electronic signals, which are amplified and displayed as visual patterns. According to the tone and volume of the sounds made by the audience, the lines split into three colors (red, green, and blue), which are transformed into unpredictable, non-repeating images.