Nam June Paik
American, born South Korea (Seoul, South Korea, 1932 - 2006, MIami Beach, Florida)Egg Grows
In 1965 Paik, a pioneer of video art, declared the video camera the paintbrush of the future. Made nearly twenty years later, this installation explores the nature of real-time video and creates a dialogue between the real and the represented, drawing our attention to the subjective nature of the medium.
A surveillance camera focuses on an egg and feeds its live signal to a succession of eight monitors, each larger than the one before, creating the illusion that the egg is growing. Meditative in tone and minimalist in strategy, the work is a humorous expression of video's capacity for exaggeration and offers insight into the impact of electronic communication on experience.
Keywords
video, monitors, eggs, cameras, live feed, stacks, rows
This resource represents a portion of SFMOMA's collection. Information about the artworks presented here is subject to revision. Please contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to verify information. If you are planning to visit SFMOMA, please note that not all artworks are on view at all times.
This resource is for educational use and its contents may not be reproduced without permission. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.
