Interactive Art

As I was reading the assigned pages of the textbook, Nam June Paik was mentioned on page 34. He is an inspirational multimedia artist and was cited as the first to coin the term "Electronic Superhighway."  In the text book, Paik was quoted (discussing about his artwork Good Morning, Mr. Orwell), "...the best way to safeguard against the world of Orwell is to make this medium interactive so it can represent the spirit of democracy, not dictatorship."

Though he was talking about Orwell's novel 1984 and the concept of "Big Brother" watching your every move, I find the quote about the "spirit of democracy, not dictatorship" liberating.  I like artists that push the envelope, see art with there third eye, thinking outside the box, coloring outside the lines, and whatever other cliches that describes being an artist that finds freedom in their expression of art instead of the constricting parameters of traditional art.

In this Youtube video, Gatis Kurzemnieks, who is a multimedia artists, motion designer, and graphics programmer.  In this embedded video, he created an interactive painting that displays various versions of the same painting with appropriate music assigned to each version.  With artists like these, art, especially multimedia art, will progress into its own historical achievement much like the Renaissance and Pop Art.  Kurzemnieks has grab the baton that has been passed on by the likes of  Paik and Mark Napier.