Global Groove refers to the "global village" concept and is a reply to Marshall Mac Luhan's optimism concerning the contribution of television. The tape is a critical proposition in the form of a television programme. In imagining the free exchange of videos, information and cultural innovation, the project counters the domination of public service and commercial television – where the former carries varying degrees of nationalism and preconceptions about other cultures, and the latter tends towards a diet of series, consumer standardisation, etc. The tape was produced by the PBS channel. The opening titles introduce the Global Groove concept, "This is a glimpse of a new world when you will be able to switch on every TV channel in the world and TV guides will be as thick as the Manhattan telephone book."

Global Groove dates from 1973 and anticipates two TV trends: cannel zapping and a growing space for music (Rock for Nam June Paik – it has an acknowledged importance in the artist's work – is the only non-verbal language uniting generations).

Fragments of works from various disciplines – popular and elitist, traditional and contemporary, Asian and western (mainly American) and ethnic (African for example) – exist together in a flow of sequences. Here, planetary space is reduced to the dimensions of the TV screen and time is reduced to the present instant. Global Groove is a frenetic universe. Its rhythm underlines the skills in composition that date from the artist's musical education. Nam June Paik's unique and innovative programmation and aesthetics are a model for television.

There is a series of inter-cut sequences: a rock group, Allen Ginsberg singing and playing the cymbals, extracts from films by Robert Breer and Yud Yalkut, Nam June Paik video performances, Asian inspired electronic music on the image of the skeleton of a musical instrument, a Merce Cunningham video dance, a dancer with jazz music, a traditional Asian choreography, a document where John Cage brings together electronic sound, binary language, the nervous system and blood circulation. The sequences continue with the Living Theatre, Devil With a Blue Dress On by Mitch Ryder and the group Detroit Wheels' Devil cut with traditional Korean dancers, an extract from a work by Stockhausen, the image of Richard Nixon deformed by the movement of a magnet on the TV (from his first studies on the video medium), the presentation of Participation TV where Nam June Paik orders viewers to open and close their eyes, etc. The public is transported by the musical and visual rhythm, without ever reaching the stage of thinking about the succession of relationships.

The images and sequences are dealt with like plastic objects. The effects of the synthesiser change the faces into a kaleidoscope of bright colours, created by repeatedly multiplying the dancers and singers, solarisation and colour saturation. Embedding and overprinting change the sequences, making them more complex – especially by set changes and the fleeting appearance of abstract forms.

Nam June Paik refers to two video performances where he derides the impact of television and electronics on society and thinking. In this musical patchwork they bring something that transgresses traditional, musical conceptions – anti-music. TV Cello shows a cello and an installation consisting of three monitors, piled together in a parody of the instrument. The screens are showing the scene live. Charlotte Moorman strokes the taut metal strings on the screens and then goes farther with the screeching of Allan Schulman music. In TV Bra for Living Sculpture, Charlotte Moorman's bare breasts are covered by a kind of bra, consisting of two small TV monitors that are showing the live performance of her playing the cello.

Collage, which is present in this programmation and also in the insertion of extracts from Global Groove into videos and i (TV Garden, Cathedral as Medium), is a central process in Nam June Paik's work. It has also been developed in live satellite broadcasts directed by the artist – like Bonjour Mr. Orwell – or, even more extraordinarily and explicitly, in Global Baleine. This concert project dates back to 1963. It consisted of playing the left hand of Johan Sebastian Bach's Fugue number 1 (in G major) in San Francisco and the right hand in Shanghai. Both parts were played the same day at the same hour, based on the Greenwich meridian. Collage again covers the virtual meeting of two people, for example the meeting made in Good Morning Mr. Orwell, by overprinting the image of Merce Cunningham dancing over a recorded interview with artist Salvador Dali.

Nam June Paik's performance videos are, like Global Groove, a way of referring back to Marshall Mac Luhan's adage, "The medium is the message." The artist shows us that everything is media processed by television – by video. Nothing can be merely seen as the simple thing in itself. The symbolic parody of the cello transformed into strings on the screen means: this is television, meaning image, sound and sequence (thus, time). For Mac Luhan, television is not only a media tool, but also a system, which is itself information. Thus, the real content is not this group of sequences and their relationships, but rather, the influence of the medium on the mental structure of individuals and on society.

Thérèse Beyler