Reading Nam June Paik's Media Planning for the Post-Industrial Age

In 1974, Nam June Paik wrote that long-distance telephone calls would become practically free and that video conferences connecting several locations would become economically feasible. In Media Planning for the Post-Industrial Age, Paik seems prophetic. How could Paik imagine such a future in such concrete detail?

Suppose we connect New York and Los Angeles with a multi-layer of Broadband communication networks, such as domestic satellites, bundles of co-ax cables, and later, the fiber-optics laser beam. The expenses would be as high as a moon landing, but the spinoffs would be more numerous. Long distance telephone will become practically free. Multi-point color TV conference calls with sophisticated input-output units will become economically feasible.[1]1Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, printed p. 9. Quotations in this English version use the original English PDF supplied for this reading; line breaks and typographical artifacts have been normalized. Page numbers throughout refer to the printed pagination. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Paik considers what might become possible if television, which delivers broadcasts, could also support conversation and the exchange of information, much like a telephone. People might look at a product on screen while asking the seller questions, or consult someone far away about their health. Paik calls this exchange of information with a particular counterpart MINI TV. MIDI TV, meanwhile, involves making videos for people interested in the same subject and delivering those videos to them. Paik compares it to scholarly books and photocopied materials. Just as people studying a particular field seek out books on that field, videos could be distributed specifically to those who need their content. People could exchange videocassettes, or cable and pay television could provide the content a particular group wants. Starting with television’s existing use, Paik imagines new applications by changing who exchanges what with whom.

Picture phone, tele-facsimile, two way inter-active TV for shopping, library research, opinion polling, health consultation, bio-communication, inter-office data transmission and many other variants will turn the TV set into the expanded mixed media telephone system for a thousand and one new applications, not only for daily convenience but also for the enrichment of life itself. This is the so-called MINI TV, a point to point information format. And there will also be MIDI TV, an information flow for and among limited numbers of special interest groups via video-cassettes, video discs, pay TV and cable TV - equivalent in print form to Xerox copying machines, academic hardcover publications, mimeographs, and posters.[2]2Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, pp. 4–5. The explanation of MINI TV and MIDI TV. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

These possibilities drew on things already happening at the time. Paik saw the fundraising auctions run by Boston’s public television station WGBH as evidence that television could function like a department store. If auctions could take place on television, why not other kinds of buying and selling? An existing use suggested a broader one.[3]3Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, pp. 6–7. WGBH’s fundraising auctions and commercial uses of television. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr Perhaps that helps explain Paik’s criticism of intellectuals who took pride in not watching television. Indifference to broadcast content could lead them to ignore the medium itself, overlooking what else it might make possible.

However, it is still a chic thing to say, “I don’t watch TV,” or “I don’t own a set.” Is this attitude a harmless snobbery, which we all relish discreetly, -or an alibi for cynical defeatism? What price did we pay for this intellectual hauteur?[4]4Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 1. Intellectual attitudes toward television and the allocation of frequencies to public and educational broadcasting. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Paik reexamines familiar human behavior as well as the uses of devices. Why do people commute or take business trips? If they travel to talk with someone and exchange information, telecommunications might let them do the same work. To support this idea, Paik quotes a forecast about telecommuting from The Economist. As computers learn to exchange information through telecommunications, some business travel and commuting may become unnecessary. If going to the office means delivering documents and discussing them with colleagues, for example, the ability to send those documents and talk remotely opens up the possibility of doing that work from home.

This invites a question about whether the work requires travel in the first place, before asking how to get to the office. Paik then introduces research by Nilles comparing the energy consumed by commuting in a private car with that used by a computer terminal and telephone line. Handling work through telecommunications could also reduce the fuel needed to move people. The imagined future of working from home becomes more concrete by connecting another way to communicate for work with research on reducing the costs of commuting.

Transportation and communication are considered generally as two separate issues. However, we have to ask first WHY people travel. People travel to communicate something, either for profit or pleasure.[5]5Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 5. The discussion of telecommuting, energy, and the transportation of paper continues on pp. 6–7. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Paik also considers what people will do once communication networks become more advanced. More cable television channels will need more programs. Selling videos in other countries will require translation and localization. Expanded networks create demand for video production and translation. To explain these changes, Paik draws on sociologist Daniel Bell’s account of post-industrial society. In industrial society, manufacturing goods in factories and the energy powering that production were central. In post-industrial society, services such as healthcare, education, and research become more important, along with the information and specialized knowledge needed to provide them.

Paik identifies media, communication, knowledge, and information as the most important common requirements of these service activities. From this perspective, communication networks become infrastructure through which people share knowledge and provide services.[6]6Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, pp. 7, 9, and 12. Bell’s account and the outlook for the video industry. Bell’s original work is not cited independently here. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

A vast new industrial complex surrounding the broadband communication network will be one of those much needed stimuli; e.g., almost limitless new video programs required to fill empty channels on cable TV, empty cans of video discs and cassettes will keep new generations busy for a long time.[7]7Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 9. The forecast for demand for video programs as communication networks expand. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Yet Paik does not assume that every future activity can be predicted and listed. Paik also anticipates “unexpected new human activities.” When contacting people far away becomes less expensive and working together becomes easier, people can attempt things they could not do before. Some activities, such as video production, can already be anticipated; other uses may only emerge once people actually start using the networks. Even while imagining future life in concrete detail, Paik leaves room for the people living that life to discover new uses.

Efficient communication reduces social waste and malfunction in every corner, resulting in exponential savings in energy and ecology. They will cease to be just an Ersatz or lubricator but will become the springboard of unexpected new human activities.[8]8Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 9. The electronic superhighways passage. The scale of the energy savings is Paik’s forecast. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Paik argues that artists’ intuition can provide an early indication of social change. In explaining why, Paik points to experience working with media and inventing genres and devices, more than to examples of successful predictions.

In recent history the artist’s instinct has often functioned (sometimes better than the computer) as an early warning system for forthcoming social change.

The artist is by definition a specialist in trans-media manipulation and meta-verbal languages.[9]9Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 10. The first two reasons Paik gives for choosing artists. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Working across media connects to the future of television described earlier. Thinking of television only as a device for watching broadcasts brings the thought process to a halt. Paik connects it with telephones and data transmission, imagining people receiving consultations and shopping through it. New ideas can emerge when the functions of different media are combined beyond a device’s familiar use. Artists’ ability to work with media may have helped make such imaginings possible.

The inventions of Paik-Abe and the Steve Beck video synthesizers show that artists can compete with big corporations in hardware design, with very minimal capital. It is the first step toward the humanization of technology - the utmost necessity for our survival.[10]10Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 11. Video synthesizers and the humanization of technology. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Artists can change a device’s functions directly, repurposing it in ways no one has tried before. Beyond using the functions supplied by a manufacturer, artists twist existing equipment to their purposes or design new devices to achieve the expression they want. Give artists a new technology, and they can experiment with other uses instead of simply repeating established ones.

Paik proposes a project to the Rockefeller Foundation that would give artists the opportunity to try new uses. The idea is to select a professional group, study what information its members normally exchange and with whom, and let them use new broadband technology in those activities. Afterward, the project would measure whether energy consumption and environmental burdens had fallen and whether work had become more efficient. Paik chooses artists as the first group and proposes applying the results to other professional groups later.[11]11Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 10. The proposed experiment with a professional group, its extension to other groups, and the choice of artists as the first participants. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

Before indulging in this Utopian script, however, we have to define a concrete program which The Rockefeller Foundation can immediately embark on with its limited resources. I suggest that we choose a professional sub-group as a prototype model and study their communication needs carefully and experiment with them in depth toward the application of the new broadband technology in all facets of their social activities and measure their contributions to energy, ecology, and efficiency factors.[12]12Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 10. The proposal for an experiment the Rockefeller Foundation could undertake. ↩ njp.ggcf.kr

I read Paik and write about this because I want to become better at imagining, too. This essay has become a gathering of fragments of Paik’s imagination and the contexts around them.

I believe that individuals, organizations, and societies need to be able to picture a future different from the present with at least some clarity if they are to improve. If I feel that I am not good at software development, I need to be able to imagine how a version of me who is good at it would understand problems and make decisions. If a company aims for 100 billion won in revenue, its members need to imagine together which customers it will serve and what value it will offer to generate that revenue. They also need to consider how the product and organization must change to operate at that scale. If we want a world where socially vulnerable people do not die, we need to imagine in depth how someone in danger can ask for help, who will respond, and how the protection and care they need can reach them in time. I think we need a concrete picture of both the future we want and the path toward it to decide what to change and take action.

In Paik’s writing, I found approaches that could help me imagine in this way. Paik looks at familiar devices and searches for uses that have not yet been tried, and asks why people need to do the things they routinely do. When a new technology appears, Paik considers what activities might become possible next, drawing on direct experience with media to expand those possibilities. Paik even turns those imaginings into experiments in which people can actually participate.

Notes

1. 1.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, printed p. 9. Quotations in this English version use the original English PDF supplied for this reading; line breaks and typographical artifacts have been normalized. Page numbers throughout refer to the printed pagination. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
2. 2.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, pp. 4–5. The explanation of MINI TV and MIDI TV. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
3. 3.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, pp. 6–7. WGBH’s fundraising auctions and commercial uses of television. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
4. 4.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 1. Intellectual attitudes toward television and the allocation of frequencies to public and educational broadcasting. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
5. 5.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 5. The discussion of telecommuting, energy, and the transportation of paper continues on pp. 6–7. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
6. 6.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, pp. 7, 9, and 12. Bell’s account and the outlook for the video industry. Bell’s original work is not cited independently here. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
7. 7.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 9. The forecast for demand for video programs as communication networks expand. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
8. 8.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 9. The electronic superhighways passage. The scale of the energy savings is Paik’s forecast. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
9. 9.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 10. The first two reasons Paik gives for choosing artists. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
10. 10.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 11. Video synthesizers and the humanization of technology. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
11. 11.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 10. The proposed experiment with a professional group, its extension to other groups, and the choice of artists as the first participants. ↩njp.ggcf.kr
12. 12.Nam June Paik, MEDIA PLANNING FOR THE POST INDUSTRIAL AGE, 1974, p. 10. The proposal for an experiment the Rockefeller Foundation could undertake. ↩njp.ggcf.kr