Aki Onda has channeled the spirit of the late Korean artist Nam June Paik via radio transmission in Nam June’s Spirit Was Speaking to Me (2017/2021). Paik is known for his association with shamanism, a practice that consistently surfaces in his works. With a portable radio in hand, Onda communicates with his spirit from a distance—collecting field recordings of cryptic broadcasts and messages on anonymous radio stations. The series of séances has been conducted in different cities across the globe, beginning in Seoul, Korea in 2010 and continuing in Cologne, Germany in 2012, Wrocław, Poland in 2013, and Lewisburg, United States in 2014. This work was originally commissioned by documenta 14’s radio program “Every Time A Ear di Soun” in 2017.

From March 26 to June 5, 2022, Aki Onda will present Nam June’s Spirit Was Speaking to Me, through
microbroadcasting and printed matter at the Toronto Biennial of Art. Broadcasting over two frequencies (88.5 FM and 106.5 FM) that cover the exhibition site of 72 Perth Ave in Toronto, radios are placed as part of the exhibition to symbolize sound waves in the air. The audio work exists as invisible yet discrete and perceptible through the proper medium, recalling the ritual of channeling spirits. Bring your own radio to catch the frequencies.

Onda is also bringing Nam June’s Spirit Was Speaking to Me to the international radio waves in a series of international public programs. The program will play, uninterrupted and in its entirety of 50 minutes. For Onda, those broadcasts are a response to how Nam June Paik spread his ideas through TV cable networks and connected to a large number of people at a global scale.

The Hereness We Inherit

Tenants rarely travel down these avenues. The shops they shut their doors windows crevices leaving no gaps for air and whatever else using boards planks nails and anything to say unwelcome. We rode across it the other day. To spectate and sightsee in our curious handheld spying devices. Who are we but voyeurs with curious intentions?

We rode again the next day to find ourselves in the middle of another extravagance. Another silence that deafens. Such an odd unfamiliar sense of the homely. Some of us felt that the meander this far has been a bit of a bore. Lacking was the propulsion and the persuasion we are all accustomed to. That irresistible zing. A seduction

The other person wasn’t willing to give in. She wasn’t as prepared. Others have chosen to let go of themselves to the point of annihilation —like the story— but she would rather be otherwise herself. She would rather stay there and then at the junction with the rest of the migrants. Be the fools of this world.

At home up in the hills were the rest of their families deep beneath the soil. They left not long ago in that sorry time where only some were destined to inherit the earth. The wretched and the royals and then some. Skies appear somewhat bluer than the days before and many things also seem to have changed for what feels like the better. She stopped and looked around. No longer certain whether to continue her sleep or to force her way to wake up.