Page 58 - Studio International - April 1970

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Visitors (bottom) reflected upside-down in true And of all the PVC materials mylar is will simply be replaced by a strip of holo-
three-dimensional space at top of hemispherical strongest for its weight. Five persons worked graphic film.)
mirror
on initial design : MacDermott, his associate Because the EAT mirror is spherical, no
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Interior view of EAT hemispherical mirror Ardison Phillips, and three structural artist/ lenses or pinhole lightsources are necessary.
showing scaffolding, balloons, visitors, and upside- engineers known as ENVIROLAB —Chris The omnidirectionally-reflecting lightwaves
down 'real images' floating in true three-dimensional
space at zenith of dome Dawson, Allen Stanton and Denny Lord. In intersect at an equidistant focal point creating
Photos : Gene Youngblood the beginning they were advised by Harry a natural hologram in true three-dimensional
Crowe, a physicist at North American space, at times upside-down. (My use of the
Rockwell, and Elsa Garmire, a Caltech term 'hologram' should be taken in its widest
physicist whose specialty is optics. meaning—`whole image' from the Greek
Two 20-foot models of plain mylar were con- Holos, meaning whole—and is not to be con-
structed on a soundstage at MGM Studios in fused with the process of wavefront recon-
Culver City. It was determined that a 90-foot struction which has come to be known as
hemisphere would require 64 'gores' or `holography' since its conception in 1949 by
elliptical sections of mylar to be fused together Dr Dennis Gabor.) The effect is utterly
in order to avoid tiny stretch-creases along the indescribable. One is overwhelmed with a
seams known as 'gore pucker.' Specifications sense of vertigo. One is unable to walk in a
were worked out both by hand and digital straight line, since the slightest motion sends
computer. These were sent to Raven Industries incredible phantasmagorias of colour and
in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where further light whirling insanely about the environ-
machine computations were made and the ment. But 'environment' is inadequate to
hemisphere was manufactured. Essentially a describe this experience of place. It's there and
full-scale model of the pavilion mirror to be it's not there. You approach the wall and it
constructed in Japan, it was revealed to the comes out at you, massively, ephemerally:
world in September in a cavernous blimp you reach out to touch it and grab air. Your
hangar at the Marine Corps Air Station in `virtual' image in the mirror appears larger
Santa Ana, California, an impressive struct- and smaller. It is mesmeric, surreal, in-
ural experience in itself. sistently 'objective' in the fullest sense.
All this technical information, however For the final installation at Osaka, David
essential, is secondary to the overwhelming, Tudor had been commissioned to design a
almost frightening sensorial impact of entering sound system making full use of the special
the mirror. There, sustained in 210 degrees of acoustic properties of the sphere. It seems that
space and anchored by 60,000 pounds of the same phenomenon occurs aurally as well
water in two circular tubes at its base, was the as visually: convolutions of sound traverse
gateway to an open empire of experiential in- this mirrored universe in a million inter-
formation available to the artist. An astonish- secting trajectories. Tudor will install 37
ing phenomenon occurs inside this boundless speakers ranged on a rhombic grid in the
space that is but one of many revelations to dome, making it possible to switch sounds
come in the Cybernetic Age : one is able to along latitudes and longitudes at speeds vary-
view actual holographic images of oneself ing from slow, to velocities which transcend
floating in three-dimensional space in real the sense of motion. When finally interfaced
time as one moves about the environment. with perpetual fog banks and krypton laser
The technique of projecting what's known as rainbow light showers at the Pepsi Pavilion,
`real images' into three-dimensional space the spherical mirror will assume its proper
was a closely-guarded secret of the ancient context which I like to call practical utopian-
Egyptian priesthood and has been practised ism. But MacDermott and Phillips admit that
by magicians through the centuries. It is the problem now is how to deal with the space
demonstrated in a famous trick of optical visually. As with all else in the open empire of
illusion generally known as 'The Rose in the the Cybernetic Age, there simply are no
Vase.' This ancient process involves the use of parameters for human activity in this kind of
a focusing lens, a concave mirror and pinhole environment.
lightsource to illusionistically transpose an Through aesthetic decisions as to the uses of
object into three-dimensional space in full technology the differences between art and
colour. As in the archetypal example, it can life, the real and the unreal, are being utterly
cause a natural-size object like a rose suddenly and finally obscured. The Cybernetic Age is
to appear in an otherwise empty vase. the new Romantic Age. Nature once again
Through a system of lenses and mirrors an has become an open empire as it was in the
object at another location can be suspended days when man thought of the earth as flat
in space wherever desired. In Japan this and extending on to infinity. When science
process is used to project tiny three-dimensional revealed the earth as spherical, and thus a
human beings onto the miniature stage of a closed system, we were able to speak of
puppet theatre: the actual persons are parameters and romance was demystified
beneath the stage floor, dancing in front of a into existentialism. But we've escaped the
large concave mirror. (Incidentally, it is this boundaries of earth and again have entered
concept which will most likely provide the an open empire in which all manner of
means for large-scale holographic movie mysteries are possible. We are children
theatres in the near future: the real object embarking on a journey of discovery. q