Nam June Paik (July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean-born American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist.[1]
Paik is credited with an early usage (1974) of the term "super highway" in application to telecommunications.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nam_June_Paik
“B 1932 in Seoul. 1953–56 studies music, history, art history and philosophy at the University of Tokyo, where he writes a dissertation on Arnold Schönberg. Continues studies in Munich and Freiburg. In 1958 meets John Cage in Darmstadt and works with Karlheinz Stockhausen at the electronic music studio of Westdeutscher Rundfunk in Cologne. Becomes a member of the Fluxus movement. 1963 shows the first manipulated TV sets, in Wuppertal. 1964 moves to New York and becomes the first artist to make videotapes. During the 1970s and 1980s his work is widely exhibited all over the world. 1978 appointed professor at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf. 1987 elected to membership of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.” (Media Art Net)
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/artist/paik/biography/
I was first introduced to the art of Nam June Paik in art school in the 1970s. The definitions of art media were being challenged by artists like Paik. We had new and startling art moments starting to make impact on the fine arts, such as Minimalism, earth works, happenings and even new music composed by controversial artist like John Cage. Paik who combined Video, TV cameras, sound, music sculpture and poetry into new and engaging art forms brought video recording and the use of television into art galleries. Not only did he use the medium of TV, he used the TV as a sculptural form combining the TV itself into sculpture.
“Paik's modified TV monitors were first presented in 1963, in his solo show titled "Exposition of Music-Electronic Television" in Germany. In 1964 he moved to New York and continued experiments with music and video performance. His ground-braking interactive video-works began in 1965, when he started experiments with his video camera, with electromagnets, and with color TV. At that time Paik also collaborated with engineer Shuya Abe in Japan. He continued as artist-in-residence at WGBH public broadcaster in Boston, USA. There he constructed the first video synthesizer together with Shuya Abe in 1969. A large magnet outside the TV monitor was used to alter the image and create an abstract picture. He produced random patterns of light by causing distortions to the electron emission spot on a phosphorous screen. Paik later used multiple TV monitors and robots, made of TV sets, metal and electronic components. In his TV project " TV Buddha" a statue of a sitting Buddha is facing it's own image on a closed circuit TV.

Paik was the founding father of Video Art. He advanced our perceptions of the temporal image and it's role in contemporary art. His largest project was "Wrap around the World" designed for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. There he mounted a giant media-tower shaped like a birthday cake, called "The More the Better" and used 1003 TV monitors for a non-stop presentation of Video-Art images and performances by Korean drummers and international artists: Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Merce Cunningham, Sergei Kuryokhin among others.” http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0656760/bio
http://arttattler.com/Images/Europe/Netherlands/Amsterdam/Stedelijk%20Museum/Temorary%20Stedelijk%202/Nam-June-Paik-TV-Buddha-1974-hig-res.jpg

http://londonkoreanlinks.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/TV-Cello-2003_500.jpg

http://theaegon.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/portrait_of_nam_june_paik-by_lim_young-kyun-1981.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2160/2214809288_ff10279858.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_tmr6tu7UMFM/TSzOkuiR8RI/AAAAAAAAAP0/5uD7Rm2f6ZM/s1600/nam-june-paik.jpg

http://www.dipaola.org/projects/paik/images/paik_image_1.jpg