Nam June Paik.

Today I went to see the Nam June Paik exhibition at FACT with an old friend. We'd been to costa to gorge on overpriced butties and fancy flavoured coffee, after a full belly of carbs and gossip, I convinced her to wander over to the FACT with me to see this exhibition. We walked in and the room was empty bar the artwork. This huge tent like formation centred in the pitch black room. It was festooned in colourful, laser-esque lights. Flashing obnoxiously really, shaping shape and moving rapidly. We approached the tent and our feet stumbled over a mat that was placed underneath the tent, I sort of glanced around to see if anyone was around and shouted 'can we go under this?' Much to my delight we could.

So me and my friend sat under the tent, then we lay down and watched the show. We talked about old times, and affairs. We must of been under there for about thirty minutes watching the dancing lines whilst discussing the impact of infidelity on families. There was something about strange about lying down in town, in a public space yet I felt so comfortable and relaxed. It felt peaceful, the warm room and the comfort of an old friend lying next to me. It felt secure, there was something about lying in a pseudo room being covered by this cone of cloth that made me feel safe.

It was a simple pleasure, being stimulated by pretty colours. It reminded me of being a child and seeing christmas lights in the city centre at night, the thrill of being out at night in a busy place, overhead a parade of glorious, naiive, and crude neon lights decorating the sky.  

When I finally decided to crawl out of the tent, after bumping into the the side of it a couple of times we left. I left feeling happy and relaxed. As my general mood some of the time is a mixutre of anixety/anger I felt a big release. I felt like the anger had drained from me. To be fair, I think it had a lot to do with lying down, and It made me think how my relationship with this piece would've changed had the oppourtunity to lie down wasn't given. I believe it would've have, I believe I wouldn't of enjoyed this as much as I did had I not experienced it lying down. This might make me sound super lazy but I could really get used to viewing art from the floor.