Nam Paik West Coast: California Video Art

Nam June Paik as a California Artist

Type
:
Calls For Papers [View all]

Posted by
:
Seoul National University/POSTECH

Deadline
:
Sun, March 15th, 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS

Edited Volume (provisional)

Working Title:

Nam June Paik as a California Artist:
West Coast Experiments, Networks, and Legacies

EDITORS:

Kyungso Min (Seoul National University)

Jung-Ah Woo (POSTECH)

We invite abstracts for an edited volume that reexamines Nam June Paik’s artistic practice through the lens of his activities on the U.S. West Coast, with particular attention to California during the 1970s. While Paik is most often associated with Fluxus, New York, and Europe, his sustained engagement with California’s media ecology — encompassing public broadcasting, experimental education, and museum-based video infrastructures — remains comparatively under examined.

This volume proposes the concept of a "California Triangle" to analyze the interlocking roles of public television, educational institutions, and museums in shaping Paik’s experiments with video, technology, and mass communication. By foregrounding regional institutions such as public broadcasting stations, Cal Arts, and pioneering museum video programs, the volume seeks to reposition California as a critical site in the institutionalization and dissemination of video art.

We welcome abstracts that address, but are not limited to:

• Video art and public television in California
• Experimental pedagogy and media education at Cal Arts
• Museum-based video programs, archives, and institutional infrastructures
• West Coast artistic, technological, and performative networks
• The Paik–Abe Video Synthesizer and technological experimentation
• Trans-Pacific and Asian American contexts of media art
• Contemporary resonances and legacies of Paik’s California period

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES & IMPORTANT DATES:

• Abstract Deadline:
  March 15, 2026
• Abstract: approximately 300 words
• Author bio: approximately 100 words

CONTACT:

• woojungah.kr

Selected contributors will be invited to submit full chapters for inclusion in the edited volume.

Posted on Thu, February 5th, 2026

Expires on Sun, March 15th, 2026

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