Half-Time

1958–1963

He meets John Cage

He meets the composer John Cage, whose ideas about using everyday sounds and noises in music strongly influence Paik.

1961–1963

Returns to Tokyo for its advanced technology

He returns to Tokyo to explore the country’s advanced technology; in 1962–1963 he lives in Japan and is a close friend of Nobuyuki Idei, then an executive and later president of the Sony Corporation.

1962

Joins Fluxus

He joins the experimental Neo-Dada movement Fluxus, which was inspired by the composer John Cage; other accounts place his involvement in Fluxus and in the international music festival in Wiesbaden in 1963.

1963

Exhibition “Exposition of Music – Electronic Television”

At his first exhibition, at Galerie Parnass, Paik scatters television sets everywhere and uses magnets to alter and distort their images.

1963–1964

Colour-TV experiments with Uchida and Abe

The engineers Hideo Uchida and Shuya Abe show him how to interfere with the flow of electrons in colour television sets, work that leads to the Abe–Paik video synthesizer.

1964

Moves to New York

He emigrates to the United States and settles in New York City; he will later become a naturalized American citizen.