Television, especially public television, was once a bastion of experimentation. While creative people, inevitably, will push the bounds of any medium, the primary impetus was audience-oriented: How can TV programs stimulate (rather than pacify) captive viewers after a long day of work, commuting and child-raising?
With wit and panache, the pioneering 20th-century video artist Nam June Paik challenged the confines and defied the expectations of the square TV frame (while also engaging with the physical presence of the monitor), as the extensive retrospective on exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through Oct. 3 amply demonstrates. Paik was all about connecting with the audience, with the aim of provoking viewers to consider their relationship with The Tube (a term that encompassed intimacy, affection, passivity and revulsion).