The Squid's Ear Magazine

Onda, Aki

Nam June's Spirit Was Speaking To Me [VINYL]

Onda, Aki: Nam June's Spirit Was Speaking To Me [VINYL] (Recital)

NY sound artist Aki Onda pays tribute to multi-media pioneer Nam June Paik (1923-2006), a work inspired after Onda's series of performances at Nam June Paik Art Center in South Korea, here using submerged and anonymous radio signals as a shamanic invocation of Paik's work; includes a 20-page booklet with photos & a remembrance of Paik plus 2 essays on radio-wave phenomena.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Aki Onda-composer, performer


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Limited Edition of 250 LPs. 20-page art booklet including rare photographs of Nam June Paik, two essays on radio-wave phenomenon (by Onda and Marcus Gammel), and a remembrance of Paik by Yuji Agematsu.

UPC: 769791976726

Label: Recital
Catalog ID: R 073LP
Squidco Product Code: 29329

Format: LP
Condition: New
Released: 2020
Country: USA
Packaging: LP
See tracking listing.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"A spellbinding tribute from one multi-faceted artist to another. New York-based artist Aki Onda (b. 1967) conjured a transduction to the Korean multi-media pioneer Nam June Paik (1932-2006). Aki himself describes the project:

Nam June's Spirit Was Speaking to Me occurred purely by chance. In 2010, I was spending four days at Nam June Paik Art Center in South Korea for a series of performances and had plenty of free time to wander. The building was packed with Paik's artwork and related material. I have always felt a close kinship with him as an artist, and so it was a great opportunity to immerse myself in his works and ephemera.

It was that night I made the first contact, via a hand-held radio in a hotel room in Seoul. It was literally out of the blue. Scanning through the stations, I stumbled upon what sounded like a submerged voice and I began to record it in fascination. I concluded this was Paik's spirit reaching out to me.

The project continued to grow organically as I kept channeling Paik's spirit over long distance and receiving cryptic broadcasts/messages. The series of séances, conducted in different cities across the globe, began in Seoul in 2010, and continued in Köln, Germany in 2012, Wrocław, Poland in 2013, and Lewisburg, USA in 2014. The original recordings were captured by the same radio which has a tape recorder, with almost no editing, save for some minimal slicing and mastering.

Paik is known for his association with shamanism, a practice that constantly surfaces in his works all through his career. In an interview, he stated "In Korea, diverse forms of shamanism are strongly remained. Even though I have created my work unconsciously, the most inspiring thing in my work came from Korean female shaman Mudang." Paik himself was a master shaman and vividly used shaman rituals and symbols for staging his performances and installations.

These recordings also became a way for me to explore the mythic form of radio-a medium which is full of mysteries. The transmissions captured may be "secret broadcasts" on anonymous radio stations. There are in fact hundreds of those stations around the world, although the numbers dwindle as clandestine messages can now be sent via encrypted digital channels. Some of these stations were likely for military use or espionage or relics of the Cold War. But many others continue without apparent explanation. These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.

Commissioned in 2017 by documenta 14's radio program "Every Time A Ear di Soun," these recordings were continually broadcast on eight radios stations around the world that year. Nam June's Spirit is a beautifully formed homage, I cannot think of any other like it. An intimate, flickering language discovered through the air. The LP comes replete with a booklet of rare photographs of Paik. These images were shot on the set of Michael Snow's film Rameau's Nephew... (1974), although the scene was not included in the final cut."-Sean McCann, 2020


Limited Edition of 250 LPs. 20-page art booklet including rare photographs of Nam June Paik, two essays on radio-wave phenomenon (by Onda and Marcus Gammel), and a remembrance of Paik by Yuji Agematsu.

Artist Biographies

"Aki Onda is a composer, performer, visual artist, and curator. Onda was born in Japan and currently resides in New York. He is particularly known for his "Cassette Memories" - works compiled from a "sound diary" of field-recordings collected by using the cassette Walkman over a span of last quarter-century. He creates compositions, performances, and visual artworks from those sound memories.

Onda often works in interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with filmmakers, visual artists, and choreographers. His on-going projects include "Nervous Magic Lantern" with Ken Jacobs, improvisation trio with Michael Snow and Alan Licht, visual-sound installation/performance with Raha Raissnia, and site-specific happening with Akio Suzuki.

Onda has performed at The Kitchen, MoMA, P.S.1 MOMA, ISSUE Project Room (New York), Time-Based Art Festival (Portland), Images Festival (Toronto), ICA (London), Louvre Museum, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Cartier (Paris), Argos, Bozar, Wiels (Brussels), International Film Festival Rotterdam, Nam June Paik Art Center (Seoul), Sound Live Tokyo (Tokyo) and many others.

Onda is also active as a curator. He is a director of TPAM (Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama) in Japan, and organized major performances and exhibitions throughout North America."

-Aki Onda Website (http://www.akionda.net/shortbio.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



SIDE A



1. Seoul (2010) 20:37

2. Koln (2012) 3:32

SIDE B



1. Lewisburg (2014) 8:12

2. Wroclaw (2013) 7:49

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