The Korean-born video artist (part of Fluxus and the John Cage circle of the 1960s) whom Bob raises as the test case for what "medium" first meant to McLuhan's readers. Inspired by McLuhan yet convinced he was only "observing" the TV image rather than engaging it, Paik put wires into the television set to distort the picture — a gesture Cameron reads as the Gutenbergian error itself. New to it — dialogue 32 is his only appearance, in the long tracking of the meanings of "medium."
Across the dialogues
Enters as the test case for the earliest, literal meaning of "medium" — the artist who mistook engaging the image for understanding the medium
Bob introduces Paik as McLuhan's would-be corrector — an artist who drew his sense of the TV medium from McLuhan yet faulted him for merely writing about it instead of engaging it.
"Nam June was pointing out that the TV medium required a different kind of investigation than McLuhan was doing."
Cameron's verdict on Paik's method — to take a TV, or magnetism, or electricity literally is exactly the Gutenbergian trap McLuhan spent his life trying to escape, so distorting the image only deepens the mistake.
"you've automatically fallen into the Gutenbergian world."
Bob places Paik at the first level of his stages of "medium" — the qualities of the video image against the book, a global-village-level reading Paik "went with" and never advanced beyond.
"This is what Nam June Paik was doing."
Connections
Paik took his ideas about the TV medium from McLuhan but tried to "correct" him by physically engaging the image — putting wires into the set to distort it.