Video Arbor

*Please note that this work of art is only turned on at night. For more information about Video Arbor viewing times, contact the property owner.

At the courtyard entrance to One Franklin Town, 84 color video monitors, mounted in three overhead metal beams, offer a dazzling swirl of images. Half of the monitors present a program of Philadelphia scenes – including buildings, historical sites, and sculptures in the city – mixed with a multitude of colorful, changing shapes. Simultaneously, the other monitors play a program of fish, flower, and bird images, geometric shapes, airplanes, spaceships, nebulae, all constantly merging and changing. The two programs alternate so that no two adjacent monitors show the same image.

The three beams housing the monitors rest on 24 open metal columns, at the foot of which wisteria wines have been planted. The intent, says artist Nam June Paik, is to create a harmony of nature and technology. The flickering images may also suggest the fleeting nature of time, and this theme is reinforced by shapes like sundials or clocks placed on the beams directly above the vertical columns. With a touch of humor, Paik decorated the rear access panels of the beams with styled diagrams of circuit boards.

Paik was born in South Korea and educated in Tokyo and Germany. He worked with electronic music before he began to concentrate on the television sculptures and video installations that have been shown in public spaces and museums worldwide. Video Arbor was commissioned as part of the Redevelopment Authority’s Percent for Art program.

Content on this page was adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, 1992). Bach was the longtime Executive Director of the Association for Public Art, working with the organization from 1980 to 2022.