05 / Elias Thorn · VRT0

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The Screen That Became a Single Line

The television is on, but its image has narrowed to a thin line of light. This is Nam June Paik’s Zen for TV, a 1963 work represented at the Smithsonian American Art Museum by a 1976 version. It is silent.

According to the museum, one television arrived broken for the 1963 exhibition. Paik retained the resulting line and named the work in reference to Zen. He later made other versions.

The line gives a viewer few events to follow. Watching it may bring one’s own expectation into focus: a changing image, a story, a sign that something has begun. This is one possible reading of the work.

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