Maker(s): | Paik, Nam June
| Culture: | American (1932 - 2006)
| Title: | Internet Dweller: btjm.twelve. jhgd
| Date Made: | 1997
| Type: | Sculpture; New Media
| Materials: | two vintage TV cabinets, three KEC 9 in. televisions model 9BND, two clocks, circuit boards, lens, fabric, and electric light fixture
| Place Made: | United States
| Measurements: | overall: 47 x 41 x 28 in.; 119.38 x 104.14 x 71.12 cm
| Accession Number: | SC 1998.18
| Credit Line: | Purchased with the Janet Wright Ketcham, class of 1953, Acquisition Fund and the Beatrice Oenslager Chace, class of 1928, Fund
| Museum Collection: | Smith College Museum of Art
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Currently on view |
Description: small wood faced TV cabinet with one television underneath larger wood faced cabinet with two televisions, round clock on either side of top cabinet and "star burst" style chandelier on top; chandelier lights up and TV's have active images when sculpture is installed
Label Text: Internet Dweller: btjm.twelve.jhgd is the twelfth in a group of a dozen “internet dwellers” created by the artist as faces of the global village. These faces, or masks, are not meant to represent ethnic or cultural types. Instead, they represent average citizens of all communities who are united through the electronic thoroughfare of the internet. The subtitle of this and other internet dwellers is styled as a (non-functional) web address. The letters are the initials of Paik’s friends.
The face of this internet dweller is composed of three screens, the “eyes” and “mouth” of the sculpture, which are set in vintage television cabinets. It has a camera “nose,” clock “ears,” and a coiffure/headdress composed of an electric light fixture. The screens run an approximately 8-minute, synchronized video program of images without sound created using a system based on chance (adopted from John Cage’s composition strategy of randomness).
Link to share this object record: https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1998.18 |