After triggering a pop of electricity by touching a screwdriver to metal in a disassembled cathode ray tube monitor, Chi-Tien Lui issued a warning to visitors gathered in his cluttered workshop on a recent Friday morning. “That voltage doesn’t kill you,” he said. “But it really hurts you.”

For the record, Mr. Lui, 75, was unharmed. He carried on with his lesson about how to remove a circuit board, then opened it up to hands-on participation. The students in his shop, CTL Electronics, in TriBeCa, were from an art conservation program at New York University. They were studying electronic art, including works by the pioneering Korean-born artist Nam June Paik, and their professor had arranged a half-day session with Mr. Lui, a technician with whom Mr. Paik had a long association.

“It feels very special and lucky that we’re able to meet him and to be here while he still has his studio and all of the equipment he has stockpiled,” Lia Kramer, 29, said. She pointed out a 1940s-era Motorola television set that looked like those used in Mr. Paik’s sculptures.