Taezoo Park
Taezoo Park is a Korean-born, New York–based artist and digitologist whose practice began in 2008 with the observation of abandoned CRT televisions on the streets of New York. This experience became more than a simple encounter: it was a phenomenological and existential engagement with technology as a responsive entity situated within its context and conditions.
Park combines obsolete and transitional technologies with contemporary computational systems to explore emergence and continuous transformation. His long-running series, Digital Being, reflects Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of processual existence and ongoing becoming, and is constantly reconfigured through interactions between audience, environment, and technology. Viewers’ movements, breath, and engagement directly shape the behavior of these entities, making the relationship between audience and work an integral part of the experience.
The works take varied forms: sometimes immersive interactive installations envelop the audience (e.g., Digital Being: Radio Row), while other times smaller, conceptually dense installations or sculptural works distill research and ideas (e.g., Digital Being: Candle TV in the Digital Era).
His practice reinterprets Walter Benjamin’s reflections on art in the age of mechanical reproduction within a digital context, considers technology, knowledge, and power through Foucault’s episteme, and implements Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction through Park’s own unmaking process. Drawing on Jean Baudrillard, his work interrogates simulacra and hyperreality, exploring the boundaries of reality and virtuality through audience interaction.
Park’s ethnographic and hands-on research—collaborations with social scientists at Cornell University, a residency at the LES Ecology Center, and restoration work on Nam June Paik’s artworks—underpins his methodical and existential approach. His work has been exhibited at the World Trade Center in New York and during Miami Art Week. Park teaches interactive and new media art at Pratt Institute’s Department of Digital Arts.
10.5 x 12.5 x 11.5 inches (26.67 × 31.75 × 29.21 cm), Antenna, Gold Star CRT TV VR-230, red 16×9 LED matrix, driver module, ESP32, ESP8266, OLED display, mic module, wire, USB charger, and e-waste parts — programmed with Arduino IDE
Samsung CRT TV BT-307MR, antenna, blue 16×9 LED matrix, driver module, ESP32, ESP8266, OLED display, mic module, wire, USB charger, and e-waste parts — programmed with Arduino IDE, 10 × 11 × 28.5 inches (25.4 × 27.9 × 72.4 cm), with antenna
"Sony 5-303W, TV Picnic Box, Yellow LED Matrix, Arduino, ESP32, Micro Sensor, E-Waste, Wire, USB Charger, Price Tag — programmed with Arduino IDE" 9.5 x 12 x 9.5 inch (24.13 × 30.48 × 24.13 cm)
CRT TV, 8x8 red LED matrix, ESP8266, wires, USB charger, red translucent acrylic, furniture legs — programmed with Arduino IDE, 7.48 × 9.06 × 8.66 inches (19 × 23 × 22 cm)
8x5.125x7.5 inch (20.32 × 13.02 × 19.05 cm) Toy, ESP8266, OLED display, e-waste parts, wire, USB charger on the book, Being Digital — Programmed with Arduino IDE
Book Understanding Media, transistor radio, transistor, vacuum tube, relay, Arduino, OLED display, penny, Bitcoin token, wire, USB-A cable, charger — programmed with Arduino IDE, 7 x 5 x 4 inch (17.78 × 12.7 × 10.16 cm)
Organic grapes, ESP32, speaker, amplifier module, wire, and USB charger placed on a shelf — programmed with Arduino IDE, 12 × 5 × 10.25 inches (30.48 × 12.7 × 26.04 cm)
10 x 14 x 3 inch (25.4 × 35.6 × 7.6 cm), LCD TFT Display, Raspberry Pi, Plywood, USB cable