Nam June Paik's 1960s creation 'Robot K-456' walks again in new piece by artist Kwon Byung-jun

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Nam June Paik's 1960s creation 'Robot K-456' walks again in new piece by artist Kwon Byung-jun

Published: 28 Jan. 2026, 18:28 Updated: 29 Jan. 2026, 13:12

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

“Ghost Theatre X Robot K-456: The Circuit Turned Back On,″ a 50-minute multimedia piece by artist Kwon Byung-jun featuring acrobatic robots, which redebuted Nam June Paik's legendary “K-456" (1964/1996), shown in this photo.[KWON KEUN-YOUNG]

On a quiet winter afternoon in Yongin, Gyeonggi, a legendary robot was taking its first steps again for the first time in decades. With its stiff, clunky limbs and a silver foil hat, it looked more like a relic from a sci-fi past than a glimpse of the future.

Yet, it had a message. This robot, named “Robot K-456” (1964/1996), was created by Korea’s pioneering video artist Nam June Paik (1932-2006), and it had come back to life. The grand reappearance was part of a 50-minute performance held at the Nam June Paik Art Center on Wednesday, which featured acrobatic robots created by artist Kwon Byung-jun.

“Robot K-456” (1964/1996) by Nam June Paik marches while scattering coffee beans at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Jan. 27. [KWON KEUN-YOUNG]

A robot named Nael unfurled a black fan, while the ladderlike robot GF2 bowed low in a slow, meditative gesture outside the museum. GF3 waved its arms in a dance, and 11 units of robots named Ahae tap-danced across a steel platform. As the mood reached a climax, the curtain — styled as a massive cathode-ray tube television — lifted to reveal the main act: “Robot K-456.”

The human-sized robot, which stood 1.85 meters (6 feet) tall, gesturing as if in a dramatic speech, lifted its foil-like hat while a speaker in its mouth blared words from then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration address: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

″Robot K-456″ (1964/1996) by Nam June Paik takes its first steps in decades outside the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi, on Jan. 27. Media artist Kwon Byung-jun is shown on the left. [KWON KEUN-YOUNG]

Kwon and two technicians hoisted the robot and carried it to the museum entrance. From there, “Robot K-456” shuffled into the outside world, scattering coffee beans and marching along to a toy trumpet — its first steps since being restored.

Paik built the bipedal, remote-controlled robot in 1964 with Japanese engineer Shuya Abe, naming it after Mozart’s “Piano Concerto No. 18 in B-flat major, K. 456” (1784). For nearly two decades, “Robot K-456” accompanied Paik to exhibition openings, drawing smiles with its clunky charm.

Paik, who envisioned the “humanization of technology,” once quipped: “Robots are supposed to reduce human labor, but mine increases it — just to make it move for 10 minutes, you need five technicians.”

In June 1982, Nam June Paik, right, remotely operates ″Robot K-456″ (1964) on the street outside the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The 18-year-old robot was about to stage a mock traffic accident performance. [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER ARCHIVE]

Far from the image of cutting-edge tech, “Robot K-456” was endearingly high-maintenance — and, ultimately, staged its own demise. In a 1982 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Paik orchestrated a mock car accident outside the venue in which “Robot K-456” was “hit” by a vehicle. He later called it the “first catastrophe of the 21st century.”

The original robot is now held in a German museum. The Nam June Paik Art Center acquired a 1996 reassembly and, thanks to circuit diagrams donated by Abe, revived it for performance. Korean media art group SILO Lab restored the circuitry and Kwon incorporated it into a new multimedia piece, titled “Ghost Theatre X Robot K-456: The Circuit Turned Back On.” Designed to perform alongside people, “Robot K-456” now shares the stage with 14 other robots — something even Paik likely never imagined when he created it 62 years ago.

“This is both K-456’s first step and its first meeting with new friends,” Kwon said during a rehearsal on Tuesday. A former rock band vocalist, Kwon studied electronic music and media art in the Netherlands and won the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art’s Korea Artist Prize 2023.

"Ghost Theatre X Robot K-456: The Circuit Turned Back On," a 50-minute multimedia piece by artist Kwon Byung-jun featuring acrobatic robots [KWON KEUN-YOUNG]

Unlike humanoid robots like Hyundai Motor’s Atlas — designed for industrial use — Kwon’s creations, much like Paik’s, are not meant to work.

“Robots that can perform tasks like humans are for engineers,” said Kwon, who calls himself “Nam June Paik’s kid.” “My robots aren’t meant for working. They’re fragile and awkward, but people seem to recognize a sense of humanity in their shaky, rough movements.”

Although we have yet to see robots casually roaming city streets and getting into accidents — a future Paik once imagined — we now live in a time when entire generations are forming emotional bonds with robots and AI.

Artist Nam June Paik, center, with his ″Robot K-456″ (1964) piece in Tokyo in this undated photo [NAM JUNE PAIK ART CENTER ARCHIVE]

Born in Seoul in 1932, during the 1910-45 period of Japanese colonial rule, Paik was the youngest of five children. His father was the head of one of Korea’s earliest conglomerates and a known collaborator with the Japanese. After studying aesthetics at the University of Tokyo, Paik moved to Germany to study music history, eventually making his name through performance art. His 1963 debut, “Exposition of Music – Electronic Television” at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany, is widely regarded as the first video art exhibition. The following year, he unveiled “Robot K-456.”

Paik predicted that in a future hyper-connected world, everyone would become a video artist and every artist a media channel. When the Tate Modern in London hosted a retrospective in 2019, it interpreted this vision as a prophecy of the internet, smartphones and YouTube.

Paik died on Jan. 29, 2006, in Miami.

To mark the 20th anniversary of his death, a memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Thursday at Bongeun Temple in Gangnam District, southern Seoul, where his ashes are interred. At 2 p.m., the Nam June Paik Art Center will host an electronic music performance by Kim Eun-jun followed by Kwon’s robot performance.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KWON KEUN-YOUNG [[email protected]]