E.A.T.–Experiments in Art and Technology

In this catalogue accompanying the exhibition organized by the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (25 July–1 November 2015), the activities of E.A.T.–Experiments in Art and Technology, a unique association of engineers and artists who made history in the 1960s and 1970s, has been revisited for the first time in a comprehensive way. Artists including Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman teamed up with Billy Klüver, a visionary engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories, and his colleague Fred Waldhauer to launch a groundbreaking initiative that would realize works of art in unprecedented collaborative ventures and employing cutting-edge technology.

The meeting between artists and engineers, E.A.T. hoped, would produce works that would not have been possible without the special expertise of trained technologists. The art would conversely also inspire the engineers to think in new directions and help shape the future evolution of technology. This book structured as chronology offers the first in-depth consideration of the full spectrum of the group’s activities and the multitude and broad variety of E.A.T.’s projects.

Projects by Artists and Bell-Labs-Engineers
Per Biorn, Robert Breer, John Cage, Lucinda Childs, Cecil H. Coker, Composers Inside Electronics, Pete Cumminski, Merce Cunningham, Jean Dupuy, Öyvind Fahlström, Ralph Flynn, Hans Haacke, Leon Harmon, Alex Hay, Deborah Hay, Larry Heilos, Peter Hirsch, Harold Hodges, Robert V. Kieronski, Billy Klüver, Ken Knowlton, Tony Martin, Jim McGee, Forrest Myers, Fujiko Nakaya, Steve Paxton, John Pearce, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Robbie Robinson, Alfons Schilling, Herb Schneider, Jean Tinguely, David Tudor, Fred Waldhauer, Andy Warhol, Robert Whitman, Witt Wittnebert, Dick Wolff, Niels & Lucy Young