Though the first use of the phrase Information Superhighway is often attributed to Al Gore, who mentioned it during a 1979 speech, Nam June Paik (1932 – 2006) is the first official person to use it. Paik recalls his use of the phrase: “I thought: if you create a highway, then people are going to invent cars. That’s dialectics. If you create electronic highways, something has to happen.”
Paik is best known as the father of video art, that is, video as both an artistic subject and a medium. A common motif of his was screen-multiplicity, connoting that our contemporary reality is composed out of multiple media sourced facets.
Paik often experimented with arrays of video/TV screens built-into symbolic objects. This physical embedding of screens was far different from how most people experienced video, to be placed on a pedestal in the living room. The web has brought Paik’s notion of video existing as as multi-point communication facet of identities to the mainstream. The modern people-centric web allows video to be embedded into the online persona, acting a as a part of you that shares visions/experiences.
Contemporary mass-adopted Broadband technologies, are used to their fullest for video at home streaming video. The high carrying capacity and stable connection required for HD online video is pushing connections to the limit. I suppose these are the latest ”cars” on our electronic super highway.
“Skin has become inadequate in interfacing with reality. Technology has become the body’s new membrane of existence.” — Nam June Paik
