9 evenings: theatre and engineering

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Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.)

1966

Signed by all 40 artists and scientists

Description

The poster seen here—an offset lithograph designed by Robert Rauschenberg—announces 9 Evenings: Theatre and Engineering, a landmark series of experimental performances that marked a turning point in collaborations between artists and scientists. Issued in a signed edition, the lithograph features small photographic portraits of all participants, including John Cage, Yvonne Rainer, and David Tudor, with the forty signatures of the artists and engineers printed beneath their images.

Conceived by Rauschenberg together with Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver, 9 Evenings brought ten artists and thirty engineers to the 69th Regiment Armory in New York, where they staged performances exploring sound, light, and motion. The evenings introduced unprecedented technical innovations. Closed-circuit television and video projection were used on stage for the first time, an infrared television camera captured action in complete darkness, and a Doppler sonar device translated movement into sound.

These performances laid the groundwork for the formation of E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), which from 1967 onward organized international projects that sought to expand the artist’s role in shaping social and cultural responses to emerging technologies.