| EVOLUTION 2002: PROCESS | |||||||||||||||||||||
 BILLY KLÜVER |
/DAY 2– FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER
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 BILLY KLÜVER |
ART AND TECHNOLOGY Billy Klüver, 2002, Beta SP Venue: Ster Century Cinema Time: 10.30 am Former Bell Laboratories engineer and co–founder of E.A.T. (Experiments In Art and Technology), Billy Klüver is widely regarded as the father of art and technology. He has worked with artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Yves Tingley to provide access to new technology as it developed in industrial research laboratories. Klüver will introduce the world premiere screening of his new film which describes his activities from the sixties to the present, beginning a day of engaging discussions that examine the relationship between art and technology. |
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 ROBERT WHITMAN during a recent interview for Evolution  FRED WALDHAUER  PEPSI PAVILION, Osaka, Japan, 1970  THE LISTENING POST (Arts in Multimedia) |
BILLY KLÜVER AND ROBERT WHITMAN: In conversation with Malcolm Le Grice Venue: Ster Century Cinema Time: 1 pm A rare opportunity to hear engineer Billy Klüver and artist Robert Whitman speak in conversation with Malcolm Le Grice about the formation and activities of E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology). Founded in 1966, E.A.T. made complex technological capabilities available to artists and challenged engineers to take a different viewpoint on their work. ‘Maintain a constructive climate for the recognition of the new technology and the arts by a civilised collaboration between groups unrealistically developing in isolation. Eliminate the separation of the individual from technological change and expand and enrich technology to give the individual variety, pleasure and avenues for exploration and involvement in contemporary life. Encourage industrial initiative in generating original forethought, instead of a compromise in aftermath, and precipitate a mutual agreement in order to avoid the waste of a cultural revolution.’ (Statement of Purpose, 1967, Experiments in Art and Technology) PANEL DISCUSSION A contemporary panel of international artists, researchers, academics and new media curators including Matt Locke (UK), Malcolm Le Grice (UK), Wayne Ashley (US) and Maja Kuzmanovik (Belgium) will extend the discussion with Billy Klüver and Robert Whitman. They will reflect upon the activities of E.A.T. and re–consider the role of the institute, the artist, the engineer and the significance of technology in the production of contemporary art works. Contributors: WAYNE ASHLEY Designed, implemented and directed Arts in Multimedia (AIM), a million-dollar research, art, and technology project in collaboration with Lucent Technologies; initiated to foster collaboration between artists and researchers at Bell Labs. Wayne is currently guest curator at Thundergulch (NY). BILLY KLÜVER is a former Bell Laboratories engineer and co–founder of E.A.T (Experiments in Art and Technology). E.A.T. was established in New York in 1966 by Robert Whitman, Fred Waldhauer, Robert Rauschenberg and Billy Klüver. The aim of EAT was simple, engineers were invited to collaborate with artists in the realization of their ideas which demanded the use of the new technology. E.A.T. was developed after the success of Nine Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, where artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage and Oyvind Fahlstrom worked with dedicated and passionate engineers to produce a series of nine live performances at the monumental 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan. MALCOLM LE GRICE is a film and video artist and founder member of the London Film Makers Co–operative in 1965. He is currently Head of Research at Central St. Martins School of Art and Design (London) and has written extensively on digital media and experimental cinema. ROBERT WHITMAN: Beginning in the 1960s, Robert Whitman collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg and engineers founding Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to sponsor collaborations between artists and engineers. Whitman has created works using live performance, slide projection, film, and lasers, believing that nearly anything can be used to create art and film. Rather than depicting real objects, as one would with a still life painting, Whitman incorporated real objects into his artwork. |
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 OPEN SCORE   KISSES SWEETER THAN WINE |
NINE EVENING: THEATRE AND ENGINEERING by Barbro Schultz Lundestam Venue: Ster Century Cinema Time: 6.30 pm In 1966 ten New York artists worked with more than thirty engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories to create works that incorporated new technology for Nine Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, a series of performances presented between 13 – 26 October 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armoury in New York. The artists included John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Öyvind Fahlström, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, David Tudor and Robert Whitman. The seminal Nine Evenings performances led to the formation of E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology) by engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman, to provide the contemporary artist with access to new technology as it developed in the research institutions and laboratories. This is a chance to see original documentary footage and interviews from two of the nine performances of this pioneering event, Open Score by Robert Rauschenberg, and Kisses Sweeter Than Wine by Öyvind Fahlström. Films: OPEN SCORE BY ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Barbro Schultz Lundestam, 1996, 34min “My piece begins with an authentic tennis game with rackets wired for transmission of sound. The sound of the game will control the lights. The game’s end is the moment the hall is totally dark. The darkness is illusionary. The hall is flooded with infra–red (so far invisable to the human eye). A modestly choreographed cast of from 300–500 people will enter and be observed and projected by infra–red television on large screens for the audience. This is the limit of the realization of the piece to date. Tennis is movement, put it in the context of theater it is a formal dance improvisation. The unlikely use of the game to control the lights and to perform as an orchestra interests me. The conflict is not being able to see an event that is taking place right infront of one except through a reproduction is the sort of double exposure of action. A screen of light and a screen of darkness”. (Robert Rauschenberg – 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, original program) KISSES SWEETER THAN WINE BY ÖYVIND FAHLSTRÖM, Barbro Schultz Lundestam, 2000, 71min “My piece deals with machine–like qualities in people: Robot–like people capable of memorizing enormous amounts of data or of making multi–digit calculations in their heads; the risk of putting "robots" (narrow minds) in situation for which they are nor "programmed"; and machines getting out of control. Juxtaposed with this are rare glimpses of everyday events and characters of the world today. New York, China, Indonesia, the bottom of the sea, space, the world of the future, all are interwoven into a triptych of slide, movie and television screens. There is no explaination. The spectator draws conclusions or not, as he chooses. I think of it as initiation rites for a new medium, Total Theater.” (Öyvind Fahlström, 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, original program) |
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21st CENTURY HAPPENING Robert Whitman Cell Phone Performance Venue: TBC Time: 9 pm ‘Robert Whitman created some of the first – and most significant – mixed–media performance works of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.’ (Chrissie Iles, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art) Using pioneering combinations of film projections, environments, and elements of theatre, Whitman contributed significantly to the amazing, sometimes nebulous form of what came to be called ‘happenings’ in New York City. With the help of thirty volunteers, thirty cell phones, and a radio station, Robert Whitman will create a 21st Century Happening live at this year’s Evolution. |
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