The Trace of the Box – Technicalized Good People

The plants and TV screens in Nam June Paik’s TV Garden (1974) maintain their current images without dying, rotting or breaking down through behind-the-scene maintenance and technological replacement. The chickens, virtually released in TV Garden by the artist, are also isolated from other living species or external changes, and live forever free from evolution, reproduction, creation or decomposition. This all seems to symbolize a future utopia in which the ecosystem is won over and maintained by technology. By borrowing the voice of artificial intelligence the Moojin Brothers ask humans who blindly accept technology without resistance if such an immortal life is what they really want to manifest.