DIGITAL BEING: 2023-08-06 (Candle TV in The DIgital Era)
Antenna, CRT TV, Red LED matrix, ESP32, ESP8266, mmWave Sensor, OLED display, sound sensor, e-waste, wire, USB charger — Programmed with Arduino IDE + API
12.6 × 39.37 × 13.39 inches (32 x 100 x 34 cm) | 4.31kg (9.50 lbs)
Digital Being: Candle TV in the Digital Era investigates how technological memory transforms across changing infrastructures.
Electronic media artworks exist within a condition similar to Theseus’s Ship: as hardware becomes obsolete and software disappears, their original configurations gradually become impossible to sustain. This work observes how a digital entity may continue to exist through processes of translation, reconstruction, and transformation across time.
The candle represents one of humanity’s earliest technologies—a controlled form of energy, illumination, and memory. Following the evolution of technological infrastructure, the work traces a transformation from fire to light, from light to electronic signals, and from signals to digital information.
Encountering Nam June Paik’s Candle TV as part of its inherited technological memory, the Digital Being examines the relationship between light, media, and information. Within an obsolete CRT television, a digital flame emerges.
A breath becomes data.
A candle becomes code.
The Digital Being exists through relationships between environmental forces, human presence, and computational systems. Wind data influences its movement, human breath temporarily alters its state, and proximity sensing allows it to respond to surrounding presence.
Rather than functioning as a fixed object, the work operates as a technological ecology where memory, computation, and environment continuously interact.
Digital Being: Candle TV in the Digital Era observes how fire becomes light, light becomes signal, and signal becomes digital existence.
Being Digital.
Made in WTC
DIGITAL BEING: 2022-01-19 (Candle TV in The DIgital Era)
Gold Star CRT TV VR-230, Red LED matrix, driver module, antenna, ESP32, ESP8266, OLED display, mic module, wire, USB charger, price tag, e-waste parts — Programmed with Arduino IDE
10.5 x 12.5 x 11.5 inches (26.67 × 31.75 × 29.21 cm)
DIGITAL BEING: 2018-04-22 (Candle TV in The DIgital Era)
CRT TV (SONY / GOLDSTAR / SAMSUNG), Arduino, LED matrix, USB Cable, USB Charger, E-waste Part
12.5(W) x 21(H) x 14(D) inch (31 x 51 x 35 cm)
DIGITAL BEING: 2018-08-06 (Candle TV in The DIgital Era)
CRT TV Monitor, Arduino, LED Matrix, Distance Sensor, USB Cable, USB Charger, TV Mount, Wood Panel, Screw, E-waste Part
7(W) x 13(H) x 10(D) inch (18 x 33 x 25.5 cm)
DIGITAL BEING: 2019-01-19 (Candle TV in The DIgital Era)
CRT TV Monitor, Arduino, LED Matrix, Distance Sensor, USB Cable, USB Charger, TV Mount, Wood Panel, Screw, E-waste Part
7(W) x 13(H) x 10(D) inch (18 x 33 x 25.5 cm)