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Sat-Art

CHAOS THEORY. WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! BY WAY OF NAM JUNE PAIK, DAVID BOWIE AND RAF SIMONS, THE MOST VISUALLY SUPER EXPLOSIVE IDEA EMAIL JUST HAPPENED. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BOOKS AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH EVERYTHING.


So that's world class before we even get started. Wow! This is a still from Nam June Paik's global television trilogy Good Morning Mr Orwell (1984), Bye-Bye Kipling (1986) and Wrap Around The World (1988). It is satellite art. It is out of this world. Live link ups between Lou Reed in New York, Ryuichi Sakamoto in Japan, Irish motor racing in the rain (for real) and elephant football in India. It is completely, utterly, [insert your own favourite new superlative], amazing. And for something so worldwide reaching it is now super obscure. We have a box set of the three events on VHS in a limited edition of 2000 issued by Sony. It was not easy to come by.
 

Of course David Bowie. Wrap Around The World opens with a live performance of Look Back In Anger with the dance troupe La La La Human Steps. That collaboration was historic. Throw in a Nam June Paik's MTV speedball graphic package and it starts to multiply into new art forms while you watch it.
 

Of course Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson! It is hard to type the words to describe how brilliant it is. Dean Winkler made the film. Watch it here on YouTube. Watch the rest of his films. Watch all video art!
 

Sweet Jane . Sweet Jesus! Lou Reed drenched in televisual feedback. Satellites of love! How we lived through the eighties and never knew about this mega event we have no idea. Ultimate TV catch up!
 

The films run about two hours. With freeze frames like this we would say there about 2500 beyond brilliant album covers / t-shirt designs / skate stickers / glimpses of heaven on these three cassettes.
 

Again no words. Just look at it! Watching this VHS playback is drugs. Viewing it through an iPhone square camera frame is lots of drugs. We shot 1800 consecutive photos! Just  1,000 of them here!
 

Live sports! This is so good you could cry. Philip Glass's Rubric is performed in New York while a Marathon is being run in Korea. Not only are the two events intercut in real time, there is also John Cage playing an electronic circuit with a feather!

 

VHS tape not historic enough: try a wooden box wrapped in a cotton square! Hand numbered 260/2000. The other 1,999 are vamooshed. You could not dream it up. And although we would love you all to see the films, settle just for this. Nam June Paik being played like a cello. Hello!
 
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