Event Blog Post 2

Some time ago, I visited LACMA's Art + Technology Lab to attend a film screening of "Two Holes of Water," a performance piece by artist Robert Whitman created for "9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering," a series of innovative dance, music, and theater performances held at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City in October of 1966. 

Here's me with a cool hashtag I found near the TV where they screened the films

The film documented Whitman's work for 9 Evenings.  which was the result of collaborations between artists and engineers from Bell Telephone Laboratories. Whitman’s performance features a live mix of seven cars with film, television projectors, and a live fiber-optic camera on the Armory floor. First, we were shown actual footage from the event. It started out with cars starting and driving inside the armory slowly, and soon after a voice was heard over speakers, and with the tremendous echo it was difficult to hear what was being said.  The car's engines were incredibly loud as well, something that is familiar to me as I actually own a VW Beetle from 1966, the same year of this production. Projections behind the cars showed all sort of things in them, from people putting on clothes or brushing hair to images of animals running across open land.  A lot of the images were distorted, reflected, and superimposed on each other. I'll be honest, I don't think I, or anyone in the room, knew exactly what was going on in the film. Below, you can see the cars and the projections behind the cars inside the armory. 

Some photography of the actual event which was shown

However, as I soon learned, that was somewhat the point it seemed. After we were shown the actual footage from the event, people involved in the event, including Robert Whitman himself, explained their preparation for the piece. Artists and Engineers worked for months in order to devise the equipment to be used, which included a lot of brand new state-of-the-art technology for 1966. It turns out the projections of the seemingly random things were, according to Robert Whitman, supposed to be somewhat random and everyday things (like the woman brushing her hair or other simple motions). They also used closed-circuit television, and the actors were back stage and filming it while it was being projected using over-the-air technology. They also used fiber-optic cameras in their filming.
Robert Whitman actually said he did not really understand (or care too much) about what the engineers were doing to help accommodate the product, which surprised me a lot. He also said that the voice over the loudspeaker was supposed to be distorted and difficult to hear, and in addition he explained that he achieved his strange reflective visual effects by having multiple cameras filming the same person and having the images superimposed. Also, a person who was inside one of the driving cars was interviewed, and he admitted he did not know what was going on, and that he had actually turned on his projections upside down on accident!
Based on what Robert Whitman was saying casually about the project, my mind immediately flew to a piece described in lecture during the week of Robot+Art, "Faraday's Garden" by Perry Hoberman (1990). Instead of being total chaos, however, the piece reminded me of driving down the street in a car, and seeing people, animals, billboards, and other visual stimuli that is almost overwhelming to the point you don't know what is going on. Hence the loud voice, loud car engines, and pretty random video that was distorted, reflected, superimposed, et cetera.

A selfie I took with a director at the Art and Tech lab at LACMA that helped put on the film screenings

Overall, I would definitely recommend the event, and if you can find some footage from the original piece you should check it out. The mere act of trying to decipher what is going on seems to cause your brain to have trouble taking it all in, causing a frustration that I think Robert Whitman was trying to demonstrate with the way the world was changing in the 60s as booming technology started to offer so much stimuli it would be overwhelming to those not used to it.