From Zen for TV to "Dreamcore": Media Nostalgia, Technological Reflection, and Social Mentality in Experimental Video Art

DOI: https://doi.org/10.62517/jnme.202610312

Author(s)

Lyu Mengxing*

Affiliation(s)

Department of Film, Television and Media, School of Arts & Communication, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

This study systematically explores the genealogy, evolution, aesthetic mechanisms, and underlying social mentality of media nostalgia in experimental video art. Driven by the continuous advancement of technological accelerationism and the society of the spectacle, the media itself has shifted from a mere "techniques of memory" that records the past into a constructed, recollected "memory of techniques." Through a comparative analysis of Nam June Paik’s classic video installations and contemporary digital aesthetics such as "Dreamcore" "Weirdcore", this paper delineates the transition of nostalgic objects from the analog signal era to the digital ruin era. Media nostalgia in experimental videos does not represent a simple retro-rebellion or escapism; rather, it functions as a distinctive form of "reflective nostalgia". Through the artistic resistance of "rematerialization", it reconstructs the subject’s identity, assuages intergenerational anxiety induced by technological shifts, and projects the unique social mentality of contemporary youth confronting the shocks of modernization within a "heterotopia" where temporal linearity is deconstructed. This phenomenon holds profound technological-reflective value and sociological significance.

Keywords

Experimental Video Art; Media Nostalgia; Nam June Paik; Dreamcore; Media Reflection

References

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