Page 50 - Studio International - January 1967

Art - with irony

I suspect that Billy Klüver approaches art with some pleasure. I feel that our Nine Evenings performances will
degree of irony. Klüver is the scientific impresario have some affinity to these long forgotten fireworks.'
largely responsible for Nine Evenings: Theatre and Engin- There is no doubt that mystery and pleasure abounded
eering which recently brought tout New York into the for the participants in the performances. There was con-
cavernous 25TH STREET ARMORY. siderable mystery, for instance, in the fact that no one
In his opening remarks, Klüver pointed out that one of seemed quite sure how and if the machines would
the problems of the contemporary artist is that everyone function, even after elaborate rehearsals. The pleasure
knows what art is. 'The scientist, by comparison, has it of close collaboration between Bell Laboratory engineers
easy; nobody, not even fellow scientists, would dare to and New York artists must have been great. But the
claim total knowledge about science.' pleasure of the audience was another matter. The per-
With his immunity privileges, the scientist somehow fection of Chinese fireworks never materialized and the
comes out of this adventure ahead of the game. His air of experimentation was not heady enough to entertain
equipment, designed to help realize the visions of various for three hours at a stretch.
dancers, painters, composers, and sculptors involved in Behind the scheme lay the perpetual dream, para-
the project, is not subject to criticism. His ideas are not phrased by the Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlstrom when
challenged, since from the beginning the function of his he wrote in the programme : 'I think of it as initiation
machines in this context was designated as absurd. rites for a new medium, Total Theatre.' All the artists
Klüver's personal dream, approached at various times involved seem engaged in some concept of a total theatre,
in the past when he has put his electronic genius at the but few were imaginative enough to implement the
disposal of Jean Tinguely, Robert Rauschenberg, and neo-Wagnerian principle.
others, is very appealing: Total theatre would presume total use of the available
`Technology has, I believe, vast untapped possibilities space. Few participants found the means to utilize the
Scene from Nine Evenings. to give pleasure and make life more enjoyable. The vast, vaulted Armory completely. In fact, the commercial
Theatre and Engineering in Chinese fireworks 3,000 years ago were maybe the first extravaganzas of Ringling Brothers are more effective
the 25th Street Armory
Photo : Peter Moore use of advanced technology to give poetry, mystery, and aurally and visually. (And their 'special effects' always
work, what's more.) The use of television screens, film
projections and electronic sound seemed oddly
old-fashioned, while. the movements of human participants
were generally circumscribed, as though the memory of
the proscenium could not be expunged.
I have heard the expenditure estimated at $125,000
for this project, which reminds me again of the drawbacks
of affluence. When the same artists staged Happenings
in downtown lofts with almost no money and roughly
improvised equipment, they were often more inventive.
Apparatus often hinders imagination.
Of the several performances I attended, I regard
Fahlström's as the most successful, the best sustained.
There in the Armory, under a banner of an army unit
announcing 'Never disobeyed an order, never lost a
flag', Fahlström offered chilling images which alluded
constantly to terror, violence and the perfected tech-
nology of the military. While Fahlström insists, fashion-
ably, that the spectator draws conclusions or not as he
pleases, he presents unmistakable thoughts. His open-
ing image of a seated dummy dressed in the black diver's
suit and pierced through the head with an arrow set
the tone for an elaborate suite of inter-related images,
almost all referring to war.
As a counterpoint, Fahlström presented on the screen,