Author: Lucius Seo

Becoming Robots: Nam June Paik Exhibition at Asia Society

It all began at first, as a joke, that we three Asians/Asian-wannabe (referring to Lucius, Christopher Chong, and Anthony Cacchione) should go to Nam June Paik’s “Becoming Robots” exhibit at the Asia Society to appreciate our cultural background, until we came to realize that it is not a joke, but some seriously mischievous and daring art exhibit.

There are times when we, as a group of people occupying the area called New York, tend to think ourselves progressive. The future is unknown, and therefore, it is savory. It can be anything ranging from the most delightful to the most destructive, and neither is a crime as the unknown future has all the rights in the world to be what it is. Artists sometimes function as mirrors, reflecting the past and the present. They are also the seers and clairvoyants of our age, as they bring closer to us what is not yet seen. “Becoming Robots” is an exhibit of such nature, whose charm is through sight and sound, and the enchantment is to conjure the distant future of the past: the art that Paik imagined fifty years ago tells the story of an alternative way of looking at today.

The intended accident, the bard of the ancient made into a robot, the artwork that changes depending on who is looking at it… These are the themes and geniuses that we saw at Paik’s exhibit. The robotic brain has handwritten notes in it, showing the inseparability between the sciences and the humanities. The violent colors, advanced video techniques, the hermaphrodite robot… These are the ideas that the artist imagined us to embody. He, through his ideas, conceived us of different dimension, and born is the collection of artwork which will stun and amaze the children of the coming generations.

“Becoming Robots” has an important message: before there is a robot, there is a human. There must first exist the cellist, or the mischievous artist sitting on the TV chair, or the Chinese poet in order for the technology to advance. True to this message, before there was Google and Facebook, there was art.


-Lucius, with Anthony and Christopher Chong

Posted on by Lucius Seo

What Saves Tiny Tim and Cratchit

“To rebel or revolt against the status quo is in the very nature of an artist.”

-Uta Hagen, Respect for Acting

Respice, Adspice, Prospice. Throughout the year, we have encountered different forms of art. We started with the art of Szymborska, which commemorates the past, looking at the photograph. Then we took a journey to Vik Muniz’s Wasteland, which uses art as a mirror, reflecting what is around us. In order to complete the trinity, we now chose the art that looks ahead.

Nam June Paik was a 20th century artist who dreamt of the world yet to come. His ideas surpassed that of Google and Facebook by several decades; revolutionary by nature and absurd by context. Yet, the greatness of his artwork is not from the very fact that Paik was ahead of his time; the artist has included humanity in the artwork which many idealists have missed. When observed carefully, the robots are not only progressive but humanly progressive, embracing both the cultures of the past and the newly evolving technology. While the robots boast engineering complications, they also cherishes the human heritage, defining very well the boundary between the creation and the creator–to the point that no artwork on the exhibit can dare to exist without a father whose name is humanity. Perhaps the boy in the photograph, who innocently plays around with his artwork, was also burdened with the onus of being an artist.

In stark contrast, the play by Young Jean Lee. Straight White Men is not an artwork which looks decades ahead of time, but it is similar to Paik’s exhibit considering that the play pulls the society towards the world yet to come. Although it is tempting to think that the play is about some straight white men, the author makes it clear that she is not speaking only about the straight white men with the social “privileges.” If we think about the remark made to Matt, concerning how a white man can’t speak about civil rights, the author hints that the play is attacking the societal silencing in general, not just a specific race or ethnic group. The playwright is well known for writing plays about everyone and anyone, unlike the traditional American method of writing, which Ronald Knox very-explicitly explained in #5 of his 10 Commandments: “No Chinaman must figure in the story.” This is the story told by Lee, which tugs everyone towards the future unknown.

If Paik’s “Becoming Robot” is the manual for an experiment, and if Lee’s Straight White Men is the procedure to identify problem, the Zero Tolerance exhibit of MoMA PS1 shows the explosion of revolution: the embodiment of ideas and realization of what used to be merely dreams. If artists are revolutionary, can revolutions be art? Certainly, revolutions can take forms of art, as shown in the exhibit. Anger, despair, grudges, frustrations. These human feelings are portrayed in many different shapes– some violent, other peaceful, some noisy, other quiet. What matters is that these images and sounds are considered modern arts, and rightfully so; they connect the artist and the subject with us, the audiences. The Zero Tolerance exhibit does not complain about what used to be, or what is now happening; it shows various experiments in which change is about to happen.

Respice, Adspice, Prospice. Art is selection. It is a selection to seek, to find, to look, to think, to feel, to live and to be. With this baby step progress towards understanding what art is, we look back, look ahead, and look around.

Posted on by Lucius Seo

New Yorkers are not the nicest people in the world, and certainly not the most welcoming. I’m proud to be one of them. #Lorca #AllRespectsToHeavenILikeItHere

Posted on by Lucius Seo

The Best of NY

Fictional or real, it does not matter. The best part about New York is the people.

New York runs on people; The people drive New York to where it is today. While there are no such streets paved in gold, all the streets in New York are paved in gold, which shines in every shade of hue possibly perceivable through human eyes.

They make arts and furthermore become arts themselves without comprehending neither the onus nor the glory of being one. They are the man listening to music. They are the six characters searching for an author. They are the theologian living with the prostitutes. They are the man walking at Penn Station. In this manner, they are New York: a gigantic mosaic of different people–many peoples becoming one and one people becoming many.

And we are they.

Posted on by Lucius Seo