A response to George Orwell’s bleak portrayal of television in his novel 1984, this work originally aired live on public television on New Year’s Day 1984 from studios in New York and Paris. It features pop-music videos, boundary-breaking performances, video art, and dance, combining live and taped contributions by a variety of artists, many of which Paik manipulated electronically as they aired. This radically transnational extravaganza reached twenty-five million viewers worldwide, turning mainstream television into a platform for “satellite art,” as Paik called it, and embracing a world speeding toward global interconnectivity.
Gallery label from Signals: How Video Transformed the World, March 5–July 8, 2023
