9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering - Variations VII

Alfons Schilling, Film, 1967, Switzerland. 20 min.
Produced by Experiments in Art and Technology.

Film produced by Experiments in Art and Technology.
Filmed and edited by Alfons Schilling, who was living in New York in the 1960s, and was commissioned by Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.) to record the 9 Evenings performances in black and white 16 mm film. The sound was recorded separately. This film of short excerpts from each artist's work was made in 1967.

Projection buckles Thursday September 22 and Friday September 23 until 6.00PM.

Barbro Schultz Lundestam - Sweden.

Film produced by Experiments in Art and Technology.

"For "Variations VII" John Cage wanted to "use sounds available at the time of the performance". 10 telephone lines were installed in the Armory by New York Telephone Company. He had lines open in various places in New York City including Luchow's, the Aviary, the 14th Street Con Edison electric power station, the ASPCA lost dog kennel, The New York Times press room, and Merce Cunningham's studio. Magnetic pickups on the telephone receivers fed these sound sources into the sound manipulation system. Cage also had 6 contact microphones on the performing platform itself and 12 contact microphones on household appliances such as a blender, a juicer, a toaster, a fan, etc. He also had 20 radio bands, 2 television bands, and 2 Geiger counters. Oscillators and a pulse generator completed the sound sources. Thirty photocells and lights were mounted at ankle level around the performance area, which activated the different sound sources as the performers moved around. Cage invited the audience to move around freely and many stood near the performance area."
Billy Klüver.

The film will use archival film footage and sound to present the performance as fully as possible followed by a documentary section with interviews with Billy Kluver and some of the performers and engineers who participated in the performance. It is still a work in progress - will be projected and followed of a discussion with the director Barbro Schultz Lundestam.

PROJECTION : Freitag, 23. September - 19.00.

Credit : Robert McElroy.

In 1966, 10 New artists worked with more than 30 engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories to create works that incorporated new technology for 9 Evenings : Theater and Engineering a series of performances presented October 13-23, 1966 at the 69th Regiment Armory 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.

9 Evenings led to the formation of 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 institution and laboratories.

In 1966, The Evenings performances were filmed by by Alfons Schilling, photographed by Peter Moore and Robert McElroy ar E.A.T.'s and the artists'request; color film and slides were also taken by Bell Laboratories. This material has been in the E.A.T. archives for 30 years.

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation gave E.A.T. a grant to clean the film material, organize it by artist, and transfer it onto BETA-SP video tape for editing and ultimate preservation on digital tape.

In 1995, Swedish filmmaker, Barbro Schultz Lundestam, began to assemble all the film, photographic, and written material for each artists performance. Schultz Lundestam has completed the preliminary work for all the ten artists. Robert Rauschenberg has made the series titles and titles sound which will be used for all ten films. Öyvind Fahlstöm's Kisses Sweeter than Wine and Robert Rauschenberg's Open Score are the first two films to be finished.