
Paik, Nam June; Abe, Shuya «Paik/Abe Synthesizer»
Paik, Nam June; Abe, Shuya, «Paik/Abe Synthesizer», 1969
Courtesy: Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen | Photography | © Paik, Nam June; Abe, Shuya


 Paik, Nam June; Abe, Shuya
«Paik/Abe Synthesizer»

From 1969 to 1971, together with television technician and specialist Shuya Abe, Paik constructed a video synthesizer that made it possible for him to edit seven different sources simultaneously—in real time. Seven cameras are calibrated to receive seven colors, each perceiving/photographing only a single color. The equipment is enhanced by a button for mixing, and a small clock that reverses the colors—from ultraviolet to infrared.
In his manifesto «Versatile Video Synthesizer,» Paik demonstrated a few ways of possibly using the machine. He combined characteristics of the image variations with great names from art history:
This will enable us to shape the TV screen canvas
as precisely as Leonardo
as freely as Picasso
as colorfully as Renoir
as profoundly as Mondrian
as violently as Pollock and
as lyrically as Jasper Johns.
(Source: Kat. Nam June Paik, Videa ‘n Videology 1959–1973, Emerson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, 1974 p.55)